


Dear Hearts and Gentle People

by mTrashCat



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fandom Blind Friendly, Nora doesn't know what super mutants are and just thinks Strong is a giant man, Nora is trying her best to survive, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Strong having an identity crisis, attempted rape (not Strong), but doesn't know how to shoot a gun, cinnamon roll Nora, emotional scarring from repressive era, recovering from abusive Nate, send fancy lad snack cakes, sinnamon roll Nora
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:09:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28967364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mTrashCat/pseuds/mTrashCat
Summary: What if Nora never had Shaun?The bombs drop and Nora wakes from her cryopod confused and horrified to find everyone dead due to pod malfunction, leaving her the last preserved person in the vault. Go through Nora's canon divergent journey as she tries to adapt and survive in this brutal new world with Kellogg on her tail.After Strong is thrown from Trinity Tower, Nora is shocked to find he's alive!Though she's never seen a man quite like him before...
Relationships: Female Sole Survivor/Strong, Nora/Strong, Sole Survivor/Strong (Fallout)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! I promise weekly updates, most likely Sundays

“I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it.”

― Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_

“Honey, be a dear and whip up some of that onion dip I like before the guys get here.” Nate hollered from the bathroom.

Nora sighed and set down her dog-eared copy of _The Sun Also Rises_ before going to the kitchen and reaching down a large bowl. She pulled a carton of sour cream from the refrigerator and dumped it in.

“It’s just sour cream and onion soup mix, how hard can that be? But of course, I have to do it.” Nora grumbled under her breath, mixing the dip with a little more vigor than necessary.

“What was that?” Nate stood in the hallway, watching her. The overpowering scent of his aftershave hit her like a wave.

“Nothing, just singing along with the radio.” Nora smiled but it was tight, bopping her hips to _Easy Living_. Nate eyed her before pulling an ice-cold Gwinnett Ale out of the refrigerator. He popped the cap off and flipped it onto the countertop before taking a long sip. Nora watched the bottle cap spin and fall flat with a clink. He winked at her and walked to the couch, sitting down with an indulgent groan, eyes glued to the football game flashing across the screen. She grit her teeth and swiped the bottle cap into the trash can.

The kitchen was filled with the rich smell of Salisbury steak sliders, spinach-feta stuffed puff pastry, and homemade peach cobbler. She had gotten up quite early that morning to make this spread for Nate’s Sunday afternoon football party, and now her feet ached like nothing else. His friends were due within the hour, and she was expected to play the perfect host.

She untied her apron and hung it on a small hook inside the pantry before walking down the hallway towards the bathroom. She paused by the open laundry room door to watch Codsworth hum while folding a fresh batch of clean clothes. The warm pleasant scent of _Summer Breeze_ Abraxo cleaner made her eyes flutter closed.

“Hello ma’am, beautiful day we’re having isn’t it?” Codsworth sprinkled in more Abraxo for the next load with a jovial flick of his mechanical arm. Nora was always fascinated by the way his optic lenses focused on whatever he was looking at.

“Yes Codsworth,” Nora smiled and her eyes relaxed. “Thank you so much for finishing that laundry, you’re a lifesaver.”

Codsworth whirred at the praise.

“Not a worry ma’am, consider it done and dusted!”

She nodded before slipping into the bathroom to refresh her mascara. Nate liked her to look _natural_ , so she kept it minimal. She wore short kitten heels and a button-up mauve-taupe dress that dipped low enough in the front to hint at her décolletage. Nora fluffed up her hair, annoyed that it was already falling back to loose waves, and applied a fresh coat of nude lipstick. Her eyes were drawn down to a deep purple bruise on her arm from where Nate had grabbed her the other night. She stared hard at herself in the mirror.

_How has it gotten this far?_

Nora smoothed her sleeve down and left the bathroom, stopping for a moment at her framed degree hanging in the hallway. She traced the side of the wood frame with her fingertips; the only woman in her family to graduate college. She remembered how proud she felt, standing on that stage to accept her certificate. Law school had been the hardest three years of her life, and despite the criticism from her family and friends, she graduated top of her class. The struggle had all been worth it.

Nora had always wanted to help people from an early age. She hated to see those on the bottom get taken advantage of by those who sat at the top. She also knew she never wanted to be at the mercy of a husband and his income, though she kept that to herself. She had grown up watching her mother suffer in silence at the hand of her father, because the alternative was being thrown out on the street with no career or skill-set to fall back on, and her mother had four children to raise.

The glass protecting the certificate caught the light coming in through the bathroom window and shone back so that the only thing Nora could see were her own disappointed eyes staring back. She pushed away from the wall and walked into the kitchen to prepare a veggie tray for the onion dip.

“That’s right baby, come on!” Nate shook his fist at the TV and clapped. Nora had just started assembling the baby carrots and broccoli florets on an embossed glass plate when the doorbell rang. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and opened the door.

“Good morning, I mean afternoon! Vault-Tec calling!” A man in a yellow trenchcoat and fedora greeted, clutching a clipboard to his chest. Nora couldn’t help smiling, taking pity on the man.

“Good afternoon, what can I help you with today?”

“I know you're a busy woman, so I won't take up much of your time. Time being a, um, precious commodity…” He snuck a glance up towards the sky, “I'm here today to tell you that because of your family's service to our country, you have been pre-selected for entrance into the local Vault. Vault 111!”

“Sounds great,” Nora gripped the side of her dress, feeling the daggers Nate stared into her back.

“Oh, it is. Believe you me. Now, you're already cleared for entrance, in the unforeseen event of… total atomic annihilation.” The Vault-Tec Representative tried to smile but it came out a grimace. “I just need to verify some information. That's all!” He pushed the clipboard towards Nora.

Her finger brushed against his as she accepted the proffered clipboard and pen. A red flush burned over the tips of his ears as his eyes flicked over her figure. She flipped through the forms oblivious to his stare, reading through a few paragraphs and signing where needed before handing it back.

“This is great, thank you. Minus your robot, you and your husband are both cleared for entrance. Congratulations on being prepared for-”

Nate slammed the door shut.

“One more word out of him and I was going to have to shut him up myself.” He scoffed, walking to the refrigerator for another Gwinnett Ale. Imaging the Vault-Tec Representative’s face on the other side of the door shocked and humiliated made Nora’s nails curl into her palms.

“Why did you have to slam the door in his face?” Her voice wavered and she took a steadying breath before turning to look at Nate. His eyes danced across her face before sticking a carrot into the dip and popping it into his mouth.

“He was done, and I shut the door. Any reason in particular you wanted to chit-chat with him longer?” His eyes narrowed, unaccustomed to her talking back.

Nora deflated and shook her head before walking to the wet bar and making herself a strong gin and tonic with a splash of grenadine. She took a sip and closed her eyes as the fizz buzzed in her ears and warmth spread through her chest. She leaned back against her armchair to get in a few more chapters of _The Sun Also Rises_ before Nate’s friends came over, glad to be off her feet.

Time passed quickly, and soon enough the afternoon light began to dip across her page. Nora drained the contents of her glass, licking the sweet grenadine from her lips before checking her watch.

“Nate, it’s been well over an hour. Did anyone ring to say they’d be late?” Nora stood and brushed the wrinkles from her dress. Nate sat rigid on the couch, drumming his fingers against the armrest. Nora picked up his empty beer bottle and threw it away before grabbing him a fresh one.

“No, but I’m sure they’re just running a little behind. Damn rude if you ask me.” He frowned, accepting the ale from her. As she pulled her hand away, Nate grabbed it and held her slim wrist, rubbing his thumb down her soft skin. Nora’s heart caught in her throat.

“Nate…” Nora trailed off, unsure of what to say.

“Ma’am, sir, you should hear this.” Codsworth interrupted, hovering near the TV.

“Followed by... yes, followed by flashes. Blinding flashes. Sounds of explosions... We're... we're trying to get confirmation... But we seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations... W-We do have- we do have... We do have coming in... That's um... confirmed reports. I repeat, confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. My God.”

The TV cut to static before a _stand-by_ message floated on the screen.

Like flipping a switch, Nate went into a calm that years of military training had drilled into him.

“We need to leave. Now.” Nate bolted from the couch and yanked the front door open. On reflex Nora grabbed her book and followed him outside. Ice-cold terror filled her as people ran screaming down the street, dragging children and suitcases. Nate gripped her wrist like a vice and tugged her to the small bridge at the end of the block that led into the back hills towards Vault 111.

A soft life had not prepared Nora for this moment, and soon she was gasping for air, struggling to keep up with him.

“Nate, let go please, I’m going to fall!” Nora panted, breath hitching. Nate released her and she ran alongside him, adrenaline causing her feet to fly while her lungs burned.

She noticed her neighbors arguing over spilled luggage and wanted to scream at them to _leave the damn luggage and run_ but before she could open her mouth Nate had grabbed her wrist again and hauled her with him across the bridge. Her ankles wobbled in her kitten heels over the uneven dirt path, but she was too afraid of stepping on something sharp to kick them off. Up ahead Nora saw a chain-link fence with military stationed in front, as well as the Vault-Tec Representative from earlier.

“That's absurd. I am Vault-Tec!” He stabbed a finger against the Vault-Tec logo on the back of his clipboard.

“Not on the list, you don't get in!” A soldier shouted back, big pearls of sweat dripping down the side of his face.

“I'm going in. You can't stop me.” The Vault-Tec Representative attempted to force himself past the soldiers. Angry panicked shouting from the line of people behind Nora got louder. The soldier nodded to another one nearby who started to rev up a minigun. The blood drained from the Vault-Tec Representative’s face.

“Whoa! Okay, but I’m reporting this!” His hands shook as he stepped to the side. Nate brushed past him and approached the soldier.

“If you're in the program, step forward. Otherwise, return home!”

“We’re in the program dammit, let us in!” Nate flashed his military ID. Nora looked back and saw the Vault-Tec Representative standing off to the side of the fence, looking utterly lost and desperate. He met her gaze and his lip trembled.

“Help me, please.” He begged, hand reaching out to hers.

“I’m so sorry, I wish I could.”

Nate grabbed her wrist again and dragged her through the gate. They ran alongside a few of their neighbors and were waved onto a large metal platform.

“That’s all we have time for, send it down!” A soldier shouted out, and the platform began to lower with a grinding moan. Nora lurched forward and Nate grabbed her arm to steady her. An explosion roared on the far horizon and filled Nora’s eyes with blinding white light. The reverberating shockwaves made her knees buckle, and soon the air was filled with screams and heat as the platform lowered just in time to avoid the fallout from the blast. Nora covered her face and began to shake.

“Nate, we forgot Codsworth! How could we leave him behind?” Nora gripped onto the sleeve of his shirt.

“Nora, get ahold of yourself! Codsworth was never able to come with us.” He removed her fingers from his shirt and tried to smooth out the warped fabric. He wrapped his hand around her arm and squeezed, and she flinched.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I think I’m in shock.” Nora took a deep breath and brushed down the skirt of her dress. She looked around, but the rest of the couples weren’t fairing much better than her.

Her left hand cramped, and she looked down startled to see her age-old battered copy of _The Sun Also Rises_ held in an iron-clad grip. A soft smile crept upon her lips, and her heart fluttered.

The platform touched bottom and a gate swung open for them. The room was cold and calm and still in comparison to the chaos above. Nora shivered, guided forward by the vault attendants that waved them along. Her heels clicked on the polished concrete floor.

Husbands and wives murmured worries and reassurances to one another as they walked. Nora looked to Nate, but his eyes were glued on their surroundings, sizing up the vault attendants. Nora looked ahead and got in line for a vault-suit.

“Wow, fits like a glove,” one of her neighbors remarked, running a hand up the side of her suit-clad hip.

The vault attendant handed Nora and Nate vault-suits and ushered them into nearby makeshift changing stalls. Nora removed her dress and folded it into a neat square with shaking hands before stepping into the suit and zipping it up, marveling at how supple yet firm the material felt. Glancing down at her throbbing feet, Nora kicked off the heels and padded back out to the attendant. She handed him the dress and her book, wondering if she would ever see them again. He looked straight down to her naked feet and Nora blushed.

“Size?”

Nora felt her ears grow hot.

“Seven,” she whispered. He lifted a brow before passing her a sturdy pair of boots and thick socks.

“Thank you,” she slipped on the shoes and followed Nate to a room filled with upright pods.

“What’s going on? What do we do now?” One of her neighbors asked the nearby Vault-Tec Doctor.

“Now now, no need to worry. Everything will be cleared up for you all very soon. But first we need everyone to step inside their decontamination pod.”

Nora shivered and her breath puffed out in front of her face. Nate reached down and grabbed her hand.

“Let’s just get this over with, we can figure everything else out after.” He squeezed her hand once before letting her go. Nora nodded and stepped inside the pod across from Nate’s. The door lowered with a hiss.

“The pod will decontaminate and depressurize you before we head deeper into the vault. Just relax.” The Vault-Tec Doctor’s voice was soothing and firm. Nora looked out the glass to see Nate staring straight back at her.

_Will this be my life from now on?_

“Occupant vitals: Normal. Procedure complete.” A robotic voice overhead reported, before counting down from ten. The air in the pod chilled her to the bone and frost crept across the glass. Nora gasped and felt breathless before everything turned black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for any reviews, positive or negative, they're all greatly appreciated and very helpful :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! I promise weekly updates, most likely Sundays

“You wouldn't believe it. It's like a wonderful nightmare.”

― Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_

A piercing siren rang in Nora's ears and reverberated in her head, and her eyes fluttered open. Her stiff lungs shuddered and she was sent into a coughing fit before she could catch her breath. The cold in her limbs was almost unbearable, and she started to shiver so hard her teeth rattled.

The latch to her pod door unlocked and lifted open with a mechanical hiss. Her legs trembled like a newborn foal, and Nora stumbled from the unit, leaning on the inner handle with a tenuous grip while rubbing her eyes.

"May I have a glass of water, please?"

Nothing but the blare of the alarms responded.

"Hello?" She called out, looking around. The room was abandoned, save for Nate and her neighbors laying still in their pods. She walked to Nate's and tapped her knuckles against the glass.

"Nate? Wake up I think there's something wrong," she whispered. Nate did not respond, his eyelashes were frozen, and his chest did not move.

"Nate," she knocked hard against the window.

Nate lay still, the glass covered in frost.

She spun around and noticed everyone else was in a similar state. Her pod had a large red 'X' spray-painted on the floor in front of it.

"Hello! Is anyone here?"

Panic crept into her chest. Her voice echoed around the corridor and bounced back to her small and scared. Nora walked across the room and opened the door, which slid open with a groan. She took a hesitant step out into the hallway, the boots felt heavy as lead on her feet.

"I seem to have finished decontaminating early! Is anyone out there?"

She opened the first door on the left to find another room filled with more units, frozen faces lining the glass-panels. She checked over her shoulder before pressing the manual release button on the control-pad attached to one of her neighbor's pods.

"Malfunction in Cryopod manual release override. Critical failure in Cryogenic Array. All vault residents must vacate immediately," a robotic voice blared out, and she jerked her hand away.

_Malfunction. Failure. Vacate._

Nora gasped and backed out of the room, head swimming.

She jogged down the hallway and attempted to open the emergency exit, but it was jammed. She opened the last remaining door and let out a bloodcurdling scream to find a three-foot-long cockroach perched on the other side of the hallway window, wings and antennae twitching with a click.

"What…?"

She stumbled back a few steps and chills ran down her spine as the cockroach sat undisturbed, watching her. She noticed a security baton left unsupervised on a metal container and snatched it up. I'll face the consequences for theft later, she thought, gripping the heavy weapon. It felt alien in her hands.

Down the following hall to the right was a small room with nothing but a stimpak and a terminal sitting on a desk. Nora slipped the stimpak into her pocket and felt a flash of guilt go through her.

Once I find a vault attendant I'll give it back and tell them I was only frightened, she reasoned with herself. She sat down at the desk and flicked through the entries on the terminal.

" _Vault 111 is designed to test the long-term effects of suspended animation on unaware, human subjects… Authorized to use lethal force… detained forcefully by security if necessary… The world's over. Barely got all the residents inside. Not everyone made it… the All-Clear signal is never coming… We're all but out of food… we're getting out of this vault."_

Nora sat numb and disbelieving, staring at the blinking cursor paused on the last line of text.

The last entry was dated _April 23, 2078_. That was a year and six months after she and Nate had entered the vault. That was impossible though, it felt like only minutes since she had stepped into the pod.

Nora stood up and faced the open door, waiting for someone to come running in any second and chastise her for trespassing. That would be preferable at this point, but no one came.

She opened the nearby file cabinets and found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Everyone she knew smoked, they claimed it calmed their nerves. She pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it before pocketing the lighter. She took a deep drag like she had seen her friends do, but as soon as the smoke hit her lungs she coughed hard and tears sprang to her eyes.

"Well, it was worth a try," she mumbled and stubbed the cigarette out on the bottom of her boot before placing it into a nearby trash can. She shrugged and slipped the pack of cigarettes into her pocket.

Hopefully, no one would notice they were missing from the drawer.

Nora picked up the security baton and left the room. Her steps echoed down the corridor and the ringing alarms grew more faint the further she walked.

On the wall up ahead she spotted a water fountain and hurried towards it. Her throat was raw from breathing in the cold dry air and the water felt like a balm, regardless of how frigid it was. She was lost in the pleasure of sating her thirst and did not hear the clicks behind her.

Something heavy flew into her back and knocked her away from the water fountain. She cried out and caught herself on the wall, scraping her knee against the damp concrete floor. She spun around and her eyes widened in horror at the largest cockroach she had ever seen. It reared up and flicked back its wings, revealing legs covered in spikes. Glistening sharp pincers twitched and she felt faint.

A wave of adrenaline rushed through her, and her arm jerked back before swinging forward and connecting with the cockroach's head, snapping an antenna in half. The creature flipped back and lain stunned for a moment before it struggled to right itself.

Nora screamed and brought the weapon down over and over again until the cockroach stopped moving, leaking thick brown slime that spread out across the floor. She stared at the scene in shock and took a moment to catch her breath. Her arm shook and she dropped the baton, wrist throbbing. She stood and rinsed her hands off in the fountain, and patted them dry on the side of her vault-suit.

_It's okay, it's okay. You did good, you're all right now._

She scooped the weapon back up and watched for any movement, but didn't see any more cockroaches. Up ahead she noticed what looked like a cafeteria and ran towards it.

"Hello, is anyone here?"

The room was empty save for tables covered in beer bottles and coffee mugs. At the back of the room was a desk with another terminal. She poked through the terminal hoping to find more information, but there was only a game holotape loaded. The kitchen and adjoining sleeping quarters were filthy and in a state of disarray, and Nora _tsked_ under her breath. She left the cafeteria and opened the last door at the end of the hall.

Twin generators hissed and great beams of electricity cracked out and struck two more massive cockroaches. Nora scooted around the generators, keeping her back pressed against the wall.

This vault has a very serious cockroach problem that I fully intend to report, she thought in disgust as she watched the beasts' antennae twitch as they lay dying.

Nora felt a crunch under her boot and looked down to find a skeleton wearing a vault-suit, sprawled across the floor with an arm reaching for the exit. She let out a high-pitched yelp and leapt away.

"Hello, anyone!" Panic made her voice tinny.

When no reply came, Nora skirted around the dead body and walked through the exit to find herself in a sizable office. At the center of the room was a blinking terminal sat on a wide desk, with another skeleton draped over a toppled nearby chair. She rushed towards the terminal and read the entries as fast as her eyes could keep up.

" _Under no circumstance is suspension to be disrupted. This includes the administration of life-saving measures… We realized almost too late that the pods were malfunctioning… a hiccup in Vault-Tec's remote override systems… keep everything under control until the All-Clear…"_

Her heart dropped at the last entry: _All Gone_

" _To whoever is reading this, my name is Gene and I am a Vault-Tec scientist. I am the last person remaining in Vault 111. After the mutiny, everyone either left or died. I stayed as long as possible, but my fear of the radiation outside is being eclipsed by starvation. All the pods have failed, aside from one. I have marked her pod with a red 'X'. There was nothing we could do. God only knows why her pod did not malfunction as the others did. I have debated thawing her out and taking her with me, but who knows what condition the world will be in when I step outside those doors. If she ever wakes up, I hope the world is a better place, and if she dies, then it is a fate far more kind than whatever awaits us._

_\- Gene Worthswood [May 05, 2078]"_

Nora stood frozen and stared at the screen, heart racing.

_All gone. All gone. All gone._

She stepped away from the terminal and noticed three stimpaks on the edge of the desk, which she pocketed without remorse. She walked around the corner to find the Vault Overseer's bedroom.

It was a filthy mess like the other rooms, but Nora now felt the stillness of abandonment that radiated from the walls. She sat on the bed that was nothing more than a stripped dirty mattress on a rusting bed frame and watched the little flecks of dust that floated in the artificial light.

She glanced to the nightstand and opened it, startled to find a copy of _The Sun Also Rises_ shoved into the back of the drawer. She pulled it out with shaking hands and flipped open the cover to see her initials scrawled in the top corner. The pages felt brittle beneath her fingertips.

Nora let out a sharp sigh, and her chest broke with deep thundering sobs that erupted up from her belly and robbed her of breath.

"Oh Nate, oh god oh god. Oh my god, no." She buried her face in her hands.

Everything was gone, everyone was dead, and she was left all alone.

_What was she going to do?_

Nora cried until there were no more tears left.

She looked up, eyes warm and swollen, and felt empty. She dried her face with her sleeve and got off the bed, and wandered over to the remaining dressers in the room. She checked through them, but they were bare aside from a worn leather knapsack. She placed her book and the pilfered stimpaks into the knapsack before slinging the bag across her shoulders and exiting the bedroom.

A gated supply closet off to the side of the room was unlocked, and Nora found a pistol with a few boxes of 10 mm ammo sat on a shelf.

She picked the pistol up and was shocked at how heavy it was. She had never fired a gun in her life, let alone hold one. Nora fiddled with the pistol looking for any sort of switch or button, and smiled when the magazine popped out of the bottom of the handle. She pushed as many bullets as possible into it, dropping a few along the way, and loaded the magazine back into the gun. She consolidated the rest of the bullets into one box of ammo and tucked it into her knapsack.

I hope I never have to use this, she thought, and slipped the pistol into her pocket before picking the security baton back up.

The exit opened with a metallic sigh and she passed through the hallway and out to the main entrance.

The floor was riddled with skeletons and debris, and the air was stagnant with dust and damp. Nora searched the room and found a few pristine vault-suits that were in her size tucked away in a box. She slipped the suits into her bag, always good to have a spare change of clothes. She noticed a skeleton laying on the floor next to the boxes, and remembered blushing and admitting her shoe size to the vault attendant.

_He's dead now, they all are._

She shook her head and checked the remaining lockers and shelves, but didn't find anything useful. On the platform floor of the vault door control panel lay a skeleton still clad in their lab coat, a Pip-Boy hanging limp off their arm.

"I'm sorry," Nora picked the Pip-Boy up and slipped it around her wrist, adjusting the buckle.

She rubbed the grime from the screen and pulled the cord loose to connect it to the control panel. It registered the Pip-Boy and beeped to attention, and she pushed the red release button. The room erupted in buzzing sirens and flashing caution lights as the vault door was pushed aside and a catwalk was extended to an incline leading down to the elevator.

Her heart fluttered in her chest as she stepped down the ramp and into the elevator. The security gate closed behind her with a resounding clank, and the platform beneath her feet lurched upwards. The shrill scream of grinding metal filled her ears as she was brought to the surface once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for any reviews, positive or negative, they're all greatly appreciated and very helpful :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! I promise weekly updates, most likely Sundays

“Everyone behaves badly--given the chance.”

― Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_

Nora’s eyes watered as the platform beneath her feet breached the surface, the sky blinding in its brightness. The wind whistled through the barren, broken trees that dotted the hillside, and the surrounding landscape was overgrown brown with snarling roots and branches that jutted out over the walkways. 

The sun glowered red and filtered muggy light through mustard clouds, casting a pall across the skeletons and construction equipment that laid abandoned in the dirt. 

Nora strained her eyes to see out as far as possible beyond the horizon, but the only movement she noticed came from a crow that had glided down to the ground from a nearby tree. 

She walked up the ramp that led to the vault control trailer a few yards away and found a handful of stimpaks hidden inside a medical cabinet. She slipped them into her bag and started down the dirt path that would take her back to Sanctuary Hills.

Dead leaves and rubble crunched beneath the thick soles of her boots in the somber silence, and soon the faint screams of her neighbors echoed around her, and flashes of struggling to keep up with Nate peppered across her eyes. She shuddered and tried to focus on the situation at hand, but the persistent image of Nate’s stern face looking back at her from his pod was burned in her mind. 

A lump formed in her throat.

The hollow sound of her boots thumping across the small bridge brought her out of her thoughts. Nora paused to take in the neighborhood, shocked at the utter desolation of a world she felt she had been away from only hours prior. 

She tried to make as little noise as possible as she walked, alert and on the lookout for more of those giant cockroaches. 

Nora arrived at her house and stared at the shattered windows and chipped paint before pushing open the front door to find the living room and kitchen laid in ruins. She took a steadying breath and stepped over the threshold, and her boot ground against the broken glass of Nate’s trifold service flag. She gasped, and a deep mechanical whirring roared from further inside the house.

“Prepare yourself, trespassers will not be tolerated here,” Codsworth snarled, and swung around the corner of the hallway with his flamethrower and buzzsaw attachments poised to strike.

“Codsworth!” Nora dropped her security baton and rushed towards the robot, throwing her arms around him. “I can’t believe it!” 

She broke into sobs and hugged Codsworth to her.

“Ma’am?” The blade of his buzzsaw ground to a halt. 

His eyes blinked owlishly, staring down at the woman holding onto him for dear life. 

“Yes, it’s me! It’s Nora, god I can’t believe you’re all right.” She sighed and pulled away, wiping her cheeks with the bottom of her sleeve. 

“As I live and breathe, it’s… it’s really you! And where is sir?”

She swallowed hard to hold back a fresh wave of tears.

“He… he’s gone.”

Thick silence pressed around them as Codsworth scanned her face.

“My condolences, ma’am.”

“Codsworth, what’s happened?” Nora waved her hand at the destruction that surrounded them.

“The world seems to have fallen to pieces, ma’am. The bombs came, and you all left in such a hurry. I thought for certain you and sir were dead.” He fidgeted, looking around at the living room that laid in shambles. “A lot can happen in two hundred years, one can only try to polish radiation burns from vinyl wood so many times before admitting defeat.”

“I don’t mind the state of the floors, silly man, I’m just so relieved to see you again.” She smiled and placed a gentle hand on his arm. 

It took a few moments for the full extent of what he had said to set in. 

“Wait I’m sorry, did you say two hundred years?”

“A bit over two hundred and ten actually, ma’am.”

Nora stood frozen as her mind struggled to accept such a statement.

“And I suppose that means you are two hundred and ten years late for dinner!” Codsworth chirped, optics focused on her face with concern. 

Her frown lifted and a small laugh slipped from her lips, and she pushed the thoughts away to deal with later.

“You’re right, now that you mention it, I am pretty hungry.” Nora walked to the sink and turned the faucet, but no water came out. “I guess I’ll have to drink from the creek,” she tapped her nail against the counter.

“Oh no ma’am, the water is quite irradiated I’m afraid. Not to worry, I can generate purified water for you!” He pulled a canister of water from his internal reservoir and handed it to her. “Shall we search the neighborhood together for food?”

Nora took a few deep gulps of the water and set the can down on the counter.

“Yes that would be great, thank you Codsworth. Do you think we’ll run into any survivors?”

“Doubtful ma’am, it’s usually just the pesky neighborhood dogs and mosquitoes. Do be careful and stay behind me, never know what nasties will pop out.”

Codsworth took the lead and Nora followed a safe distance behind, clutching the security baton in her hands. Most of the houses were derelict and deserted, aside from a few which contained enormous, overgrown flies and mosquitoes that flew out at them as soon as they stepped foot inside. 

She gasped and dove for cover while Codsworth sliced through the creatures with his ruthless buzzsaw, spraying the walls with blood and viscera. 

“What are these things? It seems the insects are much larger nowadays,” Nora nudged one with her boot.

“I’m not quite sure what they’d be called, but it appears the wildlife have been affected by the radiation, and have mutated over the years. The world is far different from how you remember it.”

“You can say that again.”

They searched each house from top to bottom before moving on to the next.

By the time they returned home the sun was set, and her bag was much more full. She spread out the goods on the kitchen table and began to catalogue her inventory. 

She had her book, eight stimpaks, a flip-lighter, a pack of cigarettes, a few spare vault-suits, two bars of soap, additional ammo, a box of _Summer Breeze_ Abraxo cleaner, a blanket and some linens, and various chems that she had found in her neighbor’s locked safe. 

Nora couldn’t pick a lock to save her life, but she did know her way around a computer and was able to unlock the safe using the connected terminal. 

As far as food went, she had found a few cans of Cram and Pork n’ Beans, two boxes of Salisbury Steak and Blamco Mac and Cheese, three Nuka Colas, Fancy Lad Snack Cakes, and InstaMash. 

Nora frowned at all the processed food. 

She had noticed a few patches of wild corn, tomatoes, and strange-looking apples that now grew around the neighborhood, and made a mental note to start a garden soon to keep her diet a little more balanced. 

“Oh!” She gasped, “Codsworth, would you be able to lift the lid to the attic crawlspace and reach inside for me, please? I tucked something away a long time ago, perhaps it’s still up there?”

“Certainly, ma’am.” 

Codsworth went to the closet in the master bedroom and lifted a latch on the ceiling, reaching an arm inside of the attic. After some searching, he pulled down a faded duffle bag coated in a thick layer of dust and patted it clean before handing it over to her.

“Thank you, Codsworth.”

She dragged the bag to the kitchen table and slid open the zipper to find some clothes, a fair amount of underwear, a spare bra, a pair of shoes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, a handful of bobby pins and hair ties, a hairbrush, a couple of books, some of her mother’s jewelry, and money. 

Nora picked up the bundle of cash and flipped through it, she wasn’t even sure if this new world used the same currency. She sighed and smoothed a finger over a few of her mother’s rings. 

This had been the emergency bag she had packed the first time Nate had hit her. She had been working up the courage to leave, but it never seemed like the right time. 

And now here she was, all alone. 

Nora grabbed a can of Pork n’ Beans and sat down at the table to eat. The sludge was bland, but she was so hungry she devoured it without complaint. 

She turned the dial of her Pip-Boy until she found a working radio station, and was surprised to find the house filled with the soft nostalgic sound of music that she knew so well.

She washed the food down with the rest of the purified water and felt ready to fall asleep where she sat. Codsworth handed her another water, and Nora brushed her teeth and cleaned her face before combing out her wild hair that had become tangled from the excitement of the day. 

They pushed a dresser to barricade the front door, and she settled down on the couch with a blanket and her copy of _The Sun Also Rises_ , something far more precious than all the toiletries and trinkets combined. She read a few chapters in the warm glow of her Pip-Boy light before falling into a deep sleep.

“Goodnight ma’am,” Codsworth whispered and set her book on the coffee table before pulling the blanket up around her shoulders. 

Buzzsaw at the ready, Codsworth roamed the perimeter of the house and kept watch while she slept.

**...**

Nora awoke as well-rested as she could, considering she had slept on a two-hundred-year-old couch.

“Good morning Codsworth,” she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and reached a hand out for her morning cup of coffee. 

It took Nora a few moments to remember, and as the events of yesterday unfolded in her memory, so did her arm plop back down beside her.

She stood from the couch and indulged in a long stretch that made her moan as her tight muscles shuddered. Nora folded her blanket and used the remaining water to brush her teeth and take a quick birdbath in the bathroom. 

Feeling refreshed, she padded back out to the kitchen and chose something on the lighter side for breakfast. She flicked the radio on to break the silence, and a voice broke through as the previous song came to an end.

“Here’s _Sixty Minute Man_ , and let’s be honest here, he’s not talking about how long his naps are,” the host remarked with a laugh. 

She blushed to hear such a thing insinuated over the radio. 

After breakfast, Nora stepped out into the morning light and took a bracing breath of fresh air before going to look for Codsworth. She soon found him in a nearby front yard and called out to him.

“Good morning,” she smiled and waved.

“Morning ma’am, sleep well?” Codsworth hovered over to her.

“Yes, thank you,” she took a moment to survey their surroundings. The landscape was devoid of life, aside from the breeze that mussed the leaves. “Do you know if there are any other people left?”

“Well, there’s always Concord, ma’am. Plenty of people there.”

Nora gasped in delight.

“Really? Oh, that’s wonderful!” 

Maybe everything wasn’t as bleak as she first believed?

She could find some survivors to take her in, or better yet, they could come back with her and start a new life here in Sanctuary Hills! It wasn’t the same as having her family and friends, but at least she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life deprived of human contact.

“We can share supplies, oh and I can plant a little garden and we can grow our own food and watch out for one another like a little family.” Nora sighed, fantasies of a cheery hodgepodge of people huddled around a community garden floating through her mind.

“Yes, although I must warn you they’re a tad rough. They pummeled me with sticks a few times before I had to run back home.”

“Oh my,” she bit her lip. 

Perhaps they were just frightened because Codsworth was a robot? Surely they’d welcome another human being with open arms. And after they took her in she could introduce them to Codsworth and they’d see he was as harmless as helpful.

“Well, be that as it may, I think I’ll pop over and see if I can find any survivors.” She walked back in the direction of the house.

“Ma’am, are you sure that’s safe?”

“Don’t worry Codsworth, I’m sure they’re perfectly nice people. And if things get hairy, I always have my trusty security baton.” Nora winked before skipping inside to gather some supplies.

She packed her knapsack with the majority of her food and stimpaks, her book, some clothes, and most of the toiletries. She hefted the bag to test the weight before slipping in a spare vault-suit and a third of the money. She packed her remaining supplies back into the duffle bag. 

“Codsworth, would you be a dear and hide the bag back in the attic and collect a couple of purified waters for me please?”

“Certainly, ma’am.”

Half an hour later Codsworth handed Nora four cans of water, which she stuffed into her knapsack.

“Can you please guard the house while I’m gone? I’ll try to be home as soon as possible,” she beamed with excitement.

“Of course ma’am, I’ll be eagerly awaiting your swift return. You remember the way, don’t you?”

“Over the big bridge and straight down the road, how could I forget?” Nora hefted the bag across her shoulders and stuffed the pistol in her pocket before grabbing the security baton. “God, it feels like just yesterday I was home with Nate and everything was normal. Well, I guess it _was_ just yesterday, at least for me.” 

She waved goodbye to Codsworth before making her way through the neighborhood towards the bridge that would take her from Sanctuary Hills to Concord.

Her boots thumped across the wood planks, and she wondered at the integrity of a bridge this old. A distance ahead Nora noticed a man sat on the side of the road beside the war memorial statue.

“Hello!” She waved her hand and the man’s head whipped over to her, “I can’t believe it, another survivor!” 

She grinned and rushed over to him. 

He was indeed _rough_ looking, as Codsworth had said, but the poor man couldn’t help it, living out in the wilderness. 

His eyes danced from her vault-suit to her soft, unblemished skin and silky blonde hair that gleamed in the sunlight. The man did not offer a response and she began to feel a little shy.

“Hello, my name is Nora, what’s yours?” 

The man looked down at her extended hand and lifted an eyebrow before snorting a laugh. She dropped her hand and a feeling of unease started to grow in the pit of her stomach.

“Drop the bag vaultie, and you might walk out of this alive.” 

He stood up, and his eyes were as hard as the line of his mouth.

She took a hesitant step back. 

“Wait, I’m another survivor! We can help each other,” she felt her hands begin to tremble.

“Drop the bag. I’m only going to ask once.” 

He took a step forward.

“Now hold on just a second! I have this, and I’m not afraid to use it.” Nora brandished the security baton and the man laughed.

“That’s cute.”

He rushed towards her, and she stumbled back while swinging the baton. It glanced off his shoulder, and he snatched it from her and tossed it over the bridge. It fell into the creek with a small plunk. 

Nora sucked in a breath to scream, and he tackled her to the ground with a hand pressed hard over her mouth. The impact knocked the air out of her lungs and her blood ran cold with shock.

She thrashed under him, but it hardly made a difference beneath his bulk. He reared his hand back and slapped her across the face, leaving her stunned. Her eyes blurred with fat tears and her cheek throbbed. 

“I was going to let you walk away, but I don’t think so anymore.” 

He yanked the bag over her head and tossed it to the side of the road before reaching a hand down to pinch her breast over the vault-suit. Nora’s scream was cut off as he pressed his hand back over her mouth, and she bucked hard against him. 

She opened her mouth as wide as she could manage and bit down, and the man ripped his hand away with a shout as his fingers dripped blood.

“You little bitch.” 

His eyes darkened to pits as he grabbed her throat and pressed her into the dirt, ruthless fingers digging into the tender skin of her neck. Nora’s eyes widened in shock, mind going blank in panic when she couldn’t draw in air. 

Her nails tore at his hand but he didn’t budge. 

He lowered his other hand to her vault-suit zipper and tugged it down to expose her bra.

“Mmm, fuck,” he grunted, taking in her soft curves and clean skin. 

Remembering her pistol, she snaked her hand into her pocket and yanked it out, jabbing the muzzle against his stomach as she squeezed the trigger.

_Click. Click. Click._

The man jolted back with a look of horror on his face. 

But Nora had never cocked the pistol after loading it back in the vault, and so it only clicked as she pulled the trigger again in disbelief. The man laughed and swatted the gun away, and his hand eased up on her neck. 

She took in a shuddering gasp and coughed.

“You stupid little whore.” 

He pinned her wrists above her head with one hand, and ripped open her vault-suit with the other. 

Nora looked down and saw a large hunting knife strapped to his belt. 

Fear and adrenaline rushed through her like ice water, and she jerked her knee up, hitting him square in the groin. 

His grip on her hands loosened and she leaned forward to rip the knife from its holster, and shoved it up between his ribs with every ounce of strength she possessed. His breath hitched with a shuddered gasp, and he attempted to push her hands away. She screamed and dug the knife up harder until he rolled off her with a choked shout, blood gushing out and splashing over her.

Nora scrambled to her feet and took a few steps back, muscles twitching with adrenaline. 

The man did not die outright, but lain on the floor groaning as he bled out, hands shaking too hard to do anything about the blade buried in his chest to the hilt. She ran to her gun and cocked it, and aimed it at the man until he drew his last breath. 

Soon enough the only sound came from her heart that pounded in her ears. 

She ran her hands from her face down to her calves, checking for injuries but found none aside from what she assumed would be considerable bruising and a split lip. She fell to her knees with a strangled sob, eyes wide and disbelieving, replaying the events that had led up to this moment over and over again.

Had she somehow provoked him, was this her fault?

Nora lost track of time, absorbed in her thoughts as the light began to dip. A crow cried out in the distance, and she realized with a jolt that she was still sitting in the middle of the road, half-naked and covered in blood. 

She stood up and nudged the man with her boot to confirm he was dead before tugging the knife out of him. It came loose with a wet suck, unleashing a thick sluggish stream of blood that oozed over the barrel of his chest. She wiped the blade off on his trousers and set it aside before retrieving his pack that laid in the dried grass a few feet away.

She opened it to find various ammo, food, a bottle of whiskey, chems, a lewd magazine, and a large number of bottle caps.

_Bottle caps, how odd._

She set his bag down beside hers and slid a trembling hand into his pockets. 

All he had on him was a silver-plated flip-lighter and a few more of those bottle caps. She pocketed the lighter, and added the caps to her knapsack before attempting to strip the man of the thick leather duster he wore. It was hard work, considering he was much heavier than her. 

By the time she removed it, Nora was sweating and out of breath. She unlatched the knife holster from his belt and sheathed the blade before tossing it into her knapsack. 

She hefted both her pack and his across her back, tucked his coat into the crux of her arm, and walked back to Sanctuary Hills. 

Codsworth’s words from earlier echoed back to her.

_“The world is far different from how you remember it.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for any reviews, positive or negative, they're all greatly appreciated and very helpful :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! 💖  
> Thank you so much for reading this story! I promise weekly updates, most likely Sundays

“That was morality; things that made you disgusted afterwards.”

― Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_

“My god ma’am, are you all right?” Codsworth rushed towards her, scanning her vault-suit with alarm.

“Yes, I’m all right, but I can’t seem to stop shaking.” 

Nora set the bags and the leather duster down on the kitchen floor and collapsed into a dining room chair.

“Where are you injured?” Codsworth fretted, the blood splashed across her stark against the blue of her vault-suit. 

“Just a few bruises is all,” Nora stared at the blood under her nails. “I don’t understand. I found a man on my way to Concord and went to introduce myself, and he tried to rob me and before I knew it… I had killed him. I killed someone!” 

She felt the knife in her hands plunging into him with his solid mass pressing her back to the dirt and she felt breathless.

“I’m sorry ma’am, I blame myself. Perhaps I should have warned you more of the dangers, but you seemed so excited… well, what’s done is done. You’re here, safe and sound and that’s all that matters.”

Nora nodded and stared down at her soiled vault-suit in a daze. 

As the sun started to set, the blood dried and began to itch, and suddenly there was nothing Nora wanted more than to be out of these clothes. 

She removed every article of clothing before taking a few of the waters from her bag and dumping them into a bucket. She grabbed a bar of soap and a washcloth and retreated to the bathroom.

She stood in the shower stall and scrubbed every inch of her body before soaping up her hair and rinsing it all out. She could still feel the man’s hands on her and was tempted to scrub her skin until it was raw, but knew that would only make her feel worse. 

Nora squeezed the water from her hair and pulled on a soft shirt before kicking her dirty clothes into a pile. She’d have to wash them tomorrow, and thought of the creek surrounding Sanctuary Hills.

Was it safe to wash clothes in?

She brushed her hair and settled down on the couch, and her eyes closed as soon as her head hit the cushion. She fell into a fitful sleep, dreams plagued by the man by the bridge.

**...**

The soft morning light filtered in and Nora awoke with a groan, every inch of her body hurt. 

She tried to swallow some water to ease her throbbing throat and gasped in pain. Nora ran to the bathroom mirror and stared in horror at the bruises that covered her, brushing her fingers across her swollen cheek. 

She looked as if she had been hit by a truck. 

She hurried to her knapsack and pulled out a stimpak. I don’t care how wasteful this is, she thought, and injected it into her arm. She sat back on the couch and sighed as relief spread through her body, and took her time finishing the can of water as a good deal of the aches faded away. Her eyes fell on the pile of clothes on the floor. 

The last thing she wanted to do was move off this couch, but the laundry needed to be done. 

Nora slipped on a fresh vault-suit and gathered the dirty clothes before grabbing the box of Abraxo and heading to the creek. She knelt at the water’s edge, the rocks biting into her knees, and proceeded to wash the soiled clothes as best she could. 

She sighed, missing her washing machine and all of the other modern conveniences she had taken for granted.

The bright melon blossom scent of the Abraxo cleaner filled her head with the pre-war days, and she hummed as she scrubbed the blood from her clothing.

**...**

The next morning Nora was relieved to find the bruising gone.

“Good morning ma’am, you’re looking much better today!” Codsworth pulled the clean clothes from a clothesline they had set up the day before. 

“Thank you Codsworth,” Nora folded the clothes as he handed them down to her. 

While she was indeed feeling better, she was still on edge. The man’s death haunted her, and she was having a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that she had only been defending herself. 

She tried to keep busy, but when her hands were idle and the silence pressed in on her, flashes of the man shoving her to the ground and yanking open her vault-suit made her feel like she couldn’t catch her breath.

“Ma’am?” 

Nora realized she was breathing hard and shook herself before she began to feel faint.

“I’m fine, Codsworth,” Nora forced a smile. “I was thinking, why don’t we go out together to look for survivors? If we hide the duffle bag with the rest of my supplies, I’m sure everything will be fine.”

She prayed he would agree, she didn’t want to face another incident like before all by herself again. She’d gotten lucky and she knew it. 

Codsworth noticed her hands trembling around the laundry.

“Certainly ma’am, there’s nothing I’d like more,” he raised his buzzsaw. “I’ll make quick work of any scoundrels that mess with us!”

“Thank you,” Nora flashed him a genuine smile and went back into the house to finish packing. 

She rolled up the leather coat and stuffed it into her pack along with the rest of the money from the duffle bag. Maybe she could see if this currency was still good, though she doubted it with no government to print and maintain it. 

After double-checking that she had what she assumed would be enough supplies, Nora asked Codsworth to hide the duffle bag back in the attic. She strapped the hunting knife to her waist, slung her knapsack across her back, and closed the front door behind them.

Codsworth hovered within a fair distance of her, scanning their surroundings for any sign of a threat as they left Sanctuary Hills. When they arrived at the foot of the bridge, Nora saw the man’s body in the distance and a chill ran down her spine as they got closer. She paused by his body, shocked to find that he had been ripped to pieces. 

“Oh my god.”

Nausea flared up from her stomach, and Codsworth guided her away from the violent scene.

“Now, now ma’am. Looks like the scum got what he deserved. Let’s put this behind you, shall we?”

If only it was so easy, she thought, the grisly image burned into her mind.

They continued down the road and Nora stared at all the charred trees and rusted signs. 

To think, just the other day she had driven down this street to get to her internship. A pang went through her heart, remembering that her law degree no longer hung in the hallway. 

It was gone, disintegrated to dust along with everything else.

As they reached the outskirts of an abandoned Red Rocket gas station, the sounds of thundering gunfire ricocheted out from the direction of Concord. Nora thought of how many bullets she had loaded in the pistol, no more than ten or so she imagined. And what would happen to Codsworth? He’d probably die to protect her, and that was the last thing she wanted. 

“Codsworth, maybe we should skip Concord? I don’t know how good our odds would be against all that gunpower.” 

“Agreed ma’am, perhaps we’ll have better luck in Lexington?”

They cut into the surrounding woods, deciding to avoid the road altogether. 

Nora struggled over the shrubs and fallen logs, and sighed in annoyance as branches snagged in her hair. The straps of the knapsack dug into her shoulders, and as the hours passed and the sun began to set, she found she needed to stop for a break more often.

“I’m sorry, Codsworth,” she caught her breath and took a deep sip from a can of purified water. Codsworth turned his attention to her. 

“It’s quite all right ma’am, you’ll-”

Something dark slammed into Codsworth and he flew headfirst into a tree, missing Nora by a few inches.

“Codsworth!”

She looked up to see a feral dog shaking its snout from the impact. It was emaciated down to the bone, snarling with thick slaver that dripped from its jaws. 

Nora dropped the water and pulled the pistol from her pocket, and fired off a shot. The bullet missed the dog by several feet and struck a nearby tree.

“Shit!” 

The mongrel reared back and lunged at her, and she screamed and fired off three more shots, one of which clipped its leg. She stumbled backwards and tripped over a log, and the dog flew clear over her and landed on its injured leg with a yelp. 

Nora scrambled to twist around when a blast of fire shot out and engulfed the dog in flames. It howled in pain and Codsworth brought his buzzsaw down, ending its suffering. Nora panted hard and stood up on shaking legs.

“Are you all right?” She felt a pang of anxiety when she realized she wouldn’t know how to fix him even if he was injured.

“Took quite a spill there, but I should be right as rain. And you, ma’am?”

Nora looked herself over, but nothing was off save for some dirt that clung to her pants. She dusted herself off and took the time to reload her gun before dropping some extra ammo into her pockets.

“I’m fine, if it hadn’t been for you I would have been killed. I owe you everything.”

Her eyes flicked from the mongrel’s sharp teeth to the tree her bullet had struck, embarrassed. 

“Think nothing of it,” he said with warmth before scanning for more dogs. “Perhaps we should stop for the night so you can rest?”

Nora was ashamed to admit how tired she was, but knew she was more a hazard to them both by not functioning at her best, which wasn’t much to begin with. She squinted in the dim light and noticed a familiar shape in the distance. 

“Good idea, I believe there’s an old diner up around the corner. Or at least there used to be. Let’s go check it out.” 

They worked their way to the breach in the treeline that would lead them to Drumlin Diner.

**...**

Conrad Kellogg sighed in annoyance as the Institute egghead that had come with him blabbered about Vault 111 as they walked. This vault was the only one, as far as they knew, that had been able to use cryogenic technology on humans with any degree of success. 

Once this had been brought to the attention of the Institute, Kellogg was deployed with the utmost urgency to retrieve a sample. The sample being a human being preserved and protected from all the vicious radiation that had poisoned the world over the last two hundred years.

“... fascinating, don’t you agree?” The scientist opened the door that led to the first bay of cryogenic pods. 

Kellogg grit his teeth and ignored her, he hadn’t been listening. 

If he pulled this job off, the Institute was going to give him new cybernetic upgrades, as well as a generous helping of caps. His mind drifted to his run-down apartment in Diamond City and imagined moving to the upper-stands with all those caps. 

Nah, he didn’t want that, but he did want the freedom those caps bought. 

Hell, after this job he’d never have to be the Institute’s dog again. Maybe he could settle down some place small and far away, where no one knew him and he could start over again? 

He imagined a sweet little country girl to warm his bed at night and felt his dick harden, hidden by the bulk of his cargo pants.

The scientist tapped away at the wall-mounted terminal and Kellogg walked past the cryopods, observing the display of frozen human faces. He peeked at the glass of a couple and frowned, they seemed _too_ still.

“We have a problem,” the scientist said, and Kellogg shouldered her aside to read through the terminal himself. 

They were all dead, every last one of them. 

He stormed to the second bay, surprised to see one of the pods opened with a red ‘X’ painted on the floor in front of it. The scientist read through the terminal in this bay as well.

“All test subjects have perished,” she frowned and stepped away from the terminal. “Harvesting the dead tissue would not be viable.”

Kellogg squinted at the opened pod.

“Take me to the Overseer’s office.” 

The scientist led him through the vault, and Kellogg took note of the bashed-in radroach on the floor and the faint smell of cigarette smoke that lingered in the hall. That was too fresh for two hundred years ago. 

They entered the office and Kellogg kicked the skeleton off the desk chair before flipping it upright and sitting down to read the terminal entries. After he finished he stood from the chair and the scientist read through them as well. 

So there was only one survivor left, and now she was missing? 

That was just great. 

He felt a headache coming on and pinched the bridge of his nose. A jolt ran down the side of his arm and it went numb for a couple of seconds. The cybernetic implants had to be deteriorating, he just knew it. They were the only things that had kept him alive this long, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to make sure they stayed working. 

If that meant seeing this job through for the Institute, then so be it.

He made his way back to the second bay of cryogenic pods and scanned through the wall-mounted terminal until he found what he was looking for.

“Nora,” he tapped the screen, her name registered along with the time and date the pod had opened. 

He may only have a name and an age, but how hard would it be to track down a soft, pre-war woman? He only hoped he got to her before the Commonwealth did.

Kellogg exited the vault, leaving the Institute scientist behind to signal for teleportation back to base. There was a neighborhood close by, and he’d bet anything she was holed up there, going through all kinds of culture shock. 

He smirked, imagining how she must have looked screaming her little head off the first time she saw that radroach in the hallway. That kill looked too fresh to be anything other than her first encounter with the wasteland. 

He walked down the dirt path to the collection of houses and paused to listen for any signs of life, but heard nothing. He slipped from house to house inspecting every room for her, but all he found were the shredded remains of bloatflies and bloodbugs, now putrefied and rotten.

So the vault-dweller had a little fight in her, that was surprising. 

He stepped into a house and caught the faint scent of something floral, and tracked it to an old laundry room. He found a box of Abraxo cleaner stashed away on the side of the washing machine next to a bucket that was still damp. 

He walked back out and noticed a few cans of purified water on the kitchen table. Those were hard to come by out in the wasteland, she had to have scavenged them from the vault. 

He must have just missed her. 

Kellogg sank into the couch with a groan and kicked his heavy boots up onto the coffee table.

This must be where she sleeps, he thought, and his dick twitched. 

He adjusted himself before pulling out a _San Francisco Sunlights_ cigar from his jacket pocket. He lit it and took a few deep puffs, savoring the smoke as it drifted out of his mouth.

No soft vault-dweller would spend more than a night out in the wild, and he’d be right here waiting for her when she got back. 

He smiled and took his time with the cigar, blowing rings into the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for any reviews, positive or negative, they're all greatly appreciated and very helpful :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! I promise weekly updates, most likely Sundays

“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them… It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

― Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_

Strong watched the small human cowering in the corner of their shared cell, sniveling and praying to his god. The unarmed human had entered Trinity Tower to recite humanitarian nonsense, and once the amusement had worn off his super mutant brothers had made quick work of hauling the human to a locked cell. 

Most of it had not made much sense to Strong, but one of the things the human said had stuck. 

_Mack Beth_ and his power of the milk of human kindness. Was there truly such a power humans had? 

He did not know, but it would explain how humans were able to fight back against him and his brothers when they went on raids. Strong would find this milk and drink it, and gain the power to wipe out humans for good. He would share the milk with his brothers as well, so none would ever die again at the hands of a pathetic human. 

But first things first, Strong had to get out of this cell. 

His leader, Fist, had not appreciated his thoughts on Mack Beth and had him thrown into the cell with the human. It was supposed to be degrading, but Strong had begun to tolerate the human and his endless talking. 

Fist had locked the human up in this particular cell with the hope that he would find the old radio left in the corner and send out a distress call. And soon enough, the human’s panicked voice was broadcasted out in a ten-mile radius for all to hear. 

_“My name is Rex Goodman. I'm being held prisoner on the top of Trinity Tower. I think the super mutants plan on eating me, I'm setting this to repeat. Oh shit! Got to sign off, one of the super mutants is coming.”_

Over time waves of rescue teams came, but were quickly felled by the super mutants who were more than ready for them. Soon their valuables and partially eaten body parts lined the levels of Trinity Tower. 

Fist had kept Rex alive thus far, but the flood of humans daring or stupid enough to try and save him had begun to slow, and Rex had lost his usefulness.

The thin metal walls shook as Fist came up the stairs and approached the gate of their cell, sneering at Rex.

“You have been useful, but no one comes for you now. Maybe hounds will make use of you?” He smirked at Rex’s ashen face and headed back downstairs.

“What do you say, think you can find a way to get me out of here?” The human clung to the edge of Strong’s armor, and he shook him off.

“Strong can’t, too many brothers to fight.”

Rex took a few steps back, and turned around to stare out between the bars of their cell window. The sky was a deep plum purple that hinted at the arrival of dawn. 

He had long lost count of how many days he had watched pass through the bars of this prison. The sounds of his fellow man storming the tower to rescue him, their screams of terror and pain, the explosions and gunfire that rocked the foundation beneath his feet. 

Day in and day out he listened to people die, torn apart limb from limb, all for him. All because he had wanted to bring culture to these brutes, thinking that if they just got a taste of Shakespeare, perhaps they’d turn away from their violent nature. 

What a fool he had been.

He was relieved when he noticed the gradual decline of would-be rescuers. Sure, he could have recorded another message to renew the attention of any nearby good-hearted people, in fact, he was sure Fist had been banking on it.

But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Rex shivered and felt a lump form in his throat.

“Strong, can I ask a favor of you?”

Strong looked to the human and grunted to show he was listening.

“I know Fist will be back soon with the mutant hounds, and I know that he and the rest of the super mutants will take great delight as I am torn to pieces.” His voice trembled, and he paused a moment to collect himself. “Can you show me mercy and end my life before they get here? Make it as painless as possible, please, I beg of you.” Rex fought to hold back the hysteria he knew was just on the cusp of spilling over. 

“I know that you will be punished for helping me, and that you have no good reason to do such a thing. But I’ll tell you something, Strong. This is the first step to getting the milk.” 

That got his attention, and Strong faced Rex to gauge whether the human was playing a trick on him. 

“Do this thing for me, this selfless gesture of mercy, and you will soon be much, much closer to the milk of human kindness.”

Strong frowned and opened his mouth to respond, but they were interrupted by the heavy footfalls of Fist and a few of his high-ranking brothers coming up the stairs. Rex sobbed as the eerie baying of the hounds floated up to their cell at the top of the tower. 

Strong sighed and stood up, looming over Rex by nearly two feet.

“Human, look outside.” 

Confused, Rex glanced outside, and his mind was flooded with all of the times he had commented aloud on the beauty of the sky as the light had changed with the passing of the days. His mouth twitched into a half-smile, and Rex turned to face the barred window, watching the faint shimmer of dawn break through the weighted velvet of night. 

Strong placed his large hands around the human’s head and twisted.

With a quick snap, Rex was dead. 

Strong lowered his hands and let the human drop to the floor, staring at the small smile that sat frozen on his face. 

He looked at peace. 

Fist stomped to the cell and laughed, his brothers following suit. The mutant hounds at their heels whined and sniffed the air. 

“Time to die, human,” Fist unlocked the door and opened it to find Rex on the floor. He snarled, glancing from the dead human to Strong.

“You have gone too far,” his voice was grave, disappointment reflected in his eyes.

He turned and spread his arms wide, addressing the rest of the super mutants.

“Strong has become infected with weakness from the humans! He is useless now, and no brother of yours. Grab him.”

Several super mutants reached into the cell and pulled Strong out.

“Strong can find milk that makes humans powerful and share it with all super mutants. We can become unstoppable!”

“That’s enough out of you, traitor. Throw him over!” 

The super mutants cheered and dragged Strong to the edge of Trinity Tower. The icy wind whipped against his face and sucked the air from his lungs, and his brothers had to hold him tight as he tried to wrench out of their grip. Strong looked over and saw the ground over three hundred feet below, and felt fear for the first time in his life. 

It wrapped around his heart like a steel beam and constricted.

**...**

Nora and Codsworth stepped out of the trees and approached the dark shape of Drumlin Diner. The sounds of shouting floated to them on the wind. 

“... you owe us,” a man’s voice called out.

“I ain’t giving you poison-shilling chem pushers anything! Do you know what that junk has done to my boy?” A woman replied, and Nora squinted to see that she was inside the diner, talking to a man and another woman outside. 

“He bought them fair and square, Trudy! Ain’t our fault if he’s strung out.” 

Nora and Codsworth rounded the corner of the road and saw that the man and woman outside the diner were well-armed. 

“Now, don’t make me come in there and shoot up that little trading post of yours.”

He and his companion lifted their guns toward the woman in the diner, who also held a gun of her own. 

Nora’s boot hit a tin can and sent it skidding across the street, and the man and his companion whipped towards her with their weapons raised. The man was handsome in a rough sort of way, clad head to toe in leather armor with shaggy dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. His companion also sported leather armor and stood a few feet behind him, her flinty eyes hard and focused on Nora.

“Whoa, easy there scavver. This doesn’t involve you,” his eyes flashed down to the gun in Nora’s hand. 

She had forgotten she was holding it, and was glad for it now. Nora didn’t think she looked particularly formidable, and she had no idea what a _scavver_ was, but she was more sure than anything that Codsworth and the gun were the only things preventing these people from shooting her on sight.

“What’s going on here?” Nora's voice came out calm and confident, but inside she screamed at the pistol aimed at her face. 

She fought to contain her panic, and tried to draw upon her experience from university. She hadn’t been out of school long, and slipping back into that rational and centered persona she had cultivated in law school was almost easy. _Almost_.

“It’s a simple business dispute, got it? Trudy’s sitting on a pile of goods that she owes me. I’d rather not take it by force because we do some good business together, but I’ve tried reasoning with her and she won’t budge.”

His eyes raked up and down Nora’s figure, squinting in suspicion as he began to register the blue of her vault suit in the darkness.

“Why don’t you let me try and talk with her? Maybe we can work this out,” Nora offered, praying she wouldn’t have to engage in a firefight she had been unlucky enough to stumble upon.

The man eyed her a moment longer before his gaze flicked to the Mr. Handy robot hovering close by, its buzzsaw and flamethrower attachments reflecting the dim light of the moon.

“All right, I appreciate it. If things go sideways, I can’t make any promises though.”

He lowered his weapon, and his companion followed suit. Nora nodded and approached the diner, the woman inside glaring daggers at her. 

She looked haggard, her greying hair pulled back into a severe bun with wisps of hair hung loose. The sleeves of her flannel shirt were pushed up, revealing arms that were tanned golden brown from the sun. 

A young man sat on the floor in the back corner, hugging his knees and keeping his head down. The diner was mostly bare, and all the windows were blown out, letting the cold night air drift in. Loose rubble was scattered across the ground, and a few empty coffee mugs and yellowed newspapers laid abandoned on the tables.

“Hello ma’am, my name is Nora. I hear you’re in some sort of trouble with the man outside?” She tried to keep her face open and voice mild, but this woman’s glare cut right through her. 

“Name’s Trudy, and I saw you and that poison-seller talking outside. Well, he ain’t getting his money, period.” She replied through gritted teeth, but Nora could see fear entrenched in the lines around her eyes.

“But why, what’s this all about?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you? He got my boy hooked on Jet, sold him a ton on _credit_ , and now expects me to pay him off.” Trudy spat, hands trembling in rage. 

Nora looked over her shoulder at the young man in the back of the diner, eyes pressed shut against his bent knees. So he had left his mother alone to deal with his problems?

“I’m sorry to say ma’am, but they’re still owed their money. If you just pay them, this will all be over and no one has to get hurt.”

Anger flashed in Trudy’s eyes.

“The only ones that are going to get hurt are those two chem-pushers if they don’t get out of here.” 

Trudy cocked the gun and flicked her eyes towards the man and woman outside. Nora wracked her brain, feeling the seconds tick down as sweat beaded on her forehead. 

If she didn’t act fast, this was going to turn violent for everyone.

“I have an addictol in my pack! I was planning on saving it, but I think this is a better use. Please, let me give this to your son, I can clearly see he is suffering from withdrawal. Take this addictol and give the man outside the money you owe him. There doesn’t have to be bloodshed,” Nora’s voice caught in her throat and she swallowed down her fear.

Trudy’s mouth snapped open with a remark on the tip of her tongue, but she stopped herself and sighed, lowering her gun. Free addictol was not an offer worth turning down. 

“All right, I’ll pay, but that bastard ain’t gonna sell one more drop of Jet to my boy.” 

Nora exhaled a tense breath and felt relief ripple down her body. 

“You hear that, Wolfgang? You’ll get your damn money, but I better never catch you selling chems to my boy again,” Trudy shouted out the window.

“Fine by me,” his tone was curt, but Nora could read relief on his face as well. Trudy walked to the cash register and Nora exited the diner to speak to Wolfgang who was waving her over. 

“Good work, you handled yourself well in there. We get paid, and I didn’t have to shoot nobody, which makes for a good night.”

“I was happy to help,” her voice trembled with the fading adrenaline, and his lips lifted at the corner in a small smile. 

Wolfgang reached into his jacket and pulled out a small pouch, handing it over to her.

Nora took the clinking pouch from him and peeked inside, surprised to find about a hundred or so bottle caps. 

Was this a joke? 

Nora looked back at him and noticed he was watching her, no signs of jest on his face.

“Thank you so much for these… bottle caps,” she flashed him a smile, albeit a confused one, and tucked the caps into her knapsack. Trudy walked out from the diner and handed a bag to Wolfgang’s companion, who measured the weight in her hand before passing it over to him.

“Thank you, Simone,” he said over his shoulder and swept his eyes over Nora’s figure while smoothing a thumb across the plump bag cradled in his large hand. 

“That feels about right,” he winked at her, and a blush dotted across Nora’s cheeks. “Now if you’re interested, how about I show you all the goods I have on offer?”

“Oh, I’m all right, but thank you! Maybe another time,” she flushed, annoyed at how flustered she had become. “Um, well, goodbye!”

She jerked her hand in a quick wave at Wolfgang and Simone before turning around and scampering back to the diner. 

He snorted a laugh, unaware of a smile tugging at his mouth.

“Vaulties,” Simone shook her head before following alongside Wolfgang as they headed back in the direction of their camp.

Nora lingered in the doorway of the diner and Trudy waved her in.

“Well, come on in. Not much warmer in here, but it’s better than out there.” Trudy leaned her hip against the shop counter and watched Nora with curious eyes.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Nora stepped inside and fished the addictol out of her knapsack. “Should I just give this to you, or…” she faltered, and Trudy waved her hand in the direction of her son.

“Go ahead and give it to him, his name’s Patrick. He should see the person who’s bailing him out.”

Nora swallowed, unsure of how best to proceed. She walked over to the young man and knelt down beside him.

“Hello, how are you doing?” 

He ignored her, head buried in his knees. She placed a hesitant hand on his arm and he flinched.

“Don’t touch me, you ugly bitch!” He jerked his head up to glare at her, eyes glassy and red.

“Oh!” Nora jolted back. 

The stress from the showdown earlier had run its course and she began to shake, feeling exhausted and out of her element. 

And so very alone. 

She was as surprised as he was when her eyes filled with tears.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? You’re not an ugly bitch,” he pulled away from his bent knees and sat up straight. “I heard what you did for Ma earlier, for me. Thank you,” he could only meet her eyes for a moment before looking back down to the floor.

“It’s all right, here you go. I hope this makes you feel better.” 

Patrick opened his hand and Nora placed the addictol inhaler onto his calloused palm. He swallowed hard as his shaking fingers brushed hers. 

Nora stood and walked back over to Trudy, who watched her son with an unreadable expression on her face.

“Well, the crisis is over. If you’re looking to trade, you’ve come to the right place.” Trudy wiped her hands with a worn rag, the harsh lines of her face smoothed with relief. Nora hefted her pack up onto the countertop and dug around.

“I was wondering, do you take this?” 

She held out the wad of cash from her emergency fund, and Trudy frowned.

“Eh, we do, but that’s more of a collector’s item than anything. Most folk use that pre-war money for paper, or shred it for cloth.” 

“Oh, I see.” 

If she didn’t have any money, how was she going to survive in this world? 

She made a mental tally of what she could sell, but most of it was food and medicine, and she’d prefer to hold on to those for the time being. 

Nora reached into her bag and pulled out the leather pouch she had been keeping all the bottle caps in. 

“Can you tell me if these are worth anything?” 

She opened the bulging pouch and a few caps spilled over onto the countertop, and Trudy’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. 

“My word, that’s a lot of caps! You haven’t shown this to anyone else, have you?” 

Trudy felt maternal concern creep into her heart for this clueless young woman.

“No, I haven’t. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them,” Nora rubbed the ridges of a faded bottle cap between her fingertips. Trudy leaned close to her, lowering her voice.

“That’s currency, sweetheart. That’s what people use to trade for things. And you, my dear, have a lot of it. I’d be careful to hide those from now on.” 

How had this vault kid come across such a large amount of caps?

“Oh! I had no idea, thank you so much,” Nora felt like a fool and fought a rising blush.

“How old are you?” Trudy eyed her smooth face.

“I’m twenty-five, ma’am.”

“Now there’s no need for all that, just call me Trudy. Did something happen to your vault, hun?” Nora fidgeted, squeezing the pouch of caps between her hands.

“You could say that.”

“Hm, thought so. Well, you’ve done right by me and my son. You’re more than welcome to stay the night here if you don’t have anywhere else to go. It’s dangerous to sleep outside, even if you do have that Mr. Handy following you around.”

Nora glanced back at Codsworth, and remembered the feral dog from earlier. The woods looked pitch black from inside the diner, and a shiver ran down her spine.

“That would be wonderful, thank you ma- Trudy,” Nora smiled, and swung her knapsack back over her shoulders. 

“Go ahead and pick a booth, or sleep on the floor if you want, anywhere is fine,” Trudy turned around to the cash register to count the till for the day. 

Nora went to a booth that was clear of clutter and leaned her bag against the wall to use as a pillow. Biting wind blew through the open window and cut straight through her vault-suit. 

She pulled the oversized leather duster out from her pack and checked it for blood before slipping it on; the sleeves hung well past her fingertips. She wrapped a blanket around herself and huddled down on the booth bench, pulling her knees up to her chest to conserve warmth. 

Despite how exhausted Nora was, she found it difficult to fall asleep. 

She sighed, wistful at the memory of slapping her alarm clock off in the morning to burrow deep into the warm safety of her down-stuffed comforter. 

Trudy walked over and set a bowl of something thick and steaming down onto the table in front of Nora.

“Here, I had some extra mole rat stew sitting on the hot plate. Don’t worry about the caps,” she turned around before Nora could respond, and began to lock up the diner for the night. 

“Thank you,” Nora picked up the bowl, touched by the gesture, and cherished the warmth that seeped into her chilled fingers. 

She sipped the hot stew and closed her eyes in bliss. 

It was savory and hearty and exactly what she needed, and she set the empty bowl back down onto the table with a contented sigh. 

Warm and full, her eyelids drooped and she fell into a much-needed sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for any reviews, positive or negative, they're all greatly appreciated and very helpful :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! I promise weekly updates, most likely Sundays

"Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?"

― Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_

Nora awoke somewhat refreshed, though her neck ached from using her bag as a pillow. The buttery morning light spilled across her through the open windows of the diner and the heat from the leather duster became stifling. 

She untangled herself from the booth bench and shucked the coat before rolling it up and shoving it back into her pack the best she could. 

Nore slung her bag across her back and looked around for Codsworth, but couldn’t find him. A spike of fear shot through her and she contemplated calling out for him, but a flash of chrome in the distance caught her eye and she spotted him outside, patrolling the perimeter of the diner. 

She noticed Trudy organizing goods on the front shelves and walked over to greet her.

“Good morning Trudy, thank you so much for letting me stay last night.”

“You’re welcome, anything you’d like to trade before hitting the road?” 

Nora set her bag down on the counter and rifled through it, and ended up trading all of her pre-war money and the majority of the recreational chems she had found in the safe back at Sanctuary Hills. She slipped the caps into her money pouch and tucked it deep into her knapsack. 

“Good doing business with you. If you’re looking for directions, might be worth it to ask Trashcan Carla. She’s a trader up the road a bit,” Trudy pointed out the window to a spot due west. “You’re lucky you came when you did, she’ll be stationed there for another day before heading off to Bunker Hill.” She moved the newly acquired goods to another shelf to sort through later and wiped her hands off with a worn rag. 

Nora wasn’t quite sure where she should go next, truth be told. 

She thought of asking Trudy and her son if they wanted to come back with her to Sanctuary Hills but figured they’d say no.

“I think I will, thanks for the heads up.” 

Nora waved goodbye and exited the diner, and Codsworth stopped patrolling to join her. She looked around for Trudy’s son to say her goodbyes, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Good morning ma’am, quite a bit of excitement yesterday, wouldn’t you say?” Codsworth handed her a purified water unprompted, and she realized she was parched. 

The dry air had ravaged her throat overnight, and Nora gulped the entire can down in one breath before tossing it into a nearby trash can.

“Thank you, and yes there certainly was. Enough excitement for a lifetime.” 

They headed up the street towards a solitary figure who leaned against the base of a roadside billboard, a large cow-like creature grazing on a patch of dead grass nearby. 

Trashcan Carla squinted at Nora and Codsworth as they approached, finishing her cigarette and flicking it into the dirt before pulling the last one from her pack. She cursed and crumpled the empty pack into a ball and tossed it over her shoulder.

“Here to trade, or are you looking for directions to Diamond City?” Carla blew out a thick cloud of smoke and it drifted into Nora’s face, and she resisted the urge to cough, not wanting to come off as rude.

“Diamond City?”

If there was a city made of diamonds, that was definitely something she wanted to see.

“Hmph, figures. Just keep goin' ‘til you see the skyline, across the river.”

“What is Diamond City?”

“The ‘Great Green Jewel’ of the Commonwealth? You must have crawled straight out of a vault if you haven’t heard of Diamond City.” 

Nora bit the inside of her cheek to hold back a remark.

“Would you mind pointing it out on my map, please?” Nora held her Pip-Boy up for Carla to see, and she grumbled under her breath before marking the location. 

Nora peered hard at the spot. 

“Across the river, you said?”

“That’s right.” 

Nora gasped, _Diamond City_ had to be Fenway Park!

“Is it a big stadium?”

“Yeah, a great green eye-sore if you ask me,” Carla grumped, reaching the end of her cigarette. 

The Boston Public Library was quite close to Fenway Park if Nora’s memory served correct.

“Can I ask you one more question?”

“Sure.”

“Does the Boston Public Library still exist, you know, with all of the books?”

“How the hell should I know? The building is still there if that’s what you’re asking. No idea what may be lurking inside though.”

Nora felt little butterflies flutter up from her stomach. The entire library, with all the books she could ever want, all to herself like a childhood dream come true. 

All of the restricted first editions, all the thick, leather-bound classics and almanacs ripe for the picking. So many peaceful Saturdays she had spent at that library, working her way through a stack of books sprawled across the table for hours on end. Her world as she knew it might be gone, but the words written in those books would preserve it forever. 

She was shocked to feel a lump form in her throat, and she struggled to swallow it down. 

The library should be close to Fenway Park, or _Diamond City_ as the new world called it. She could almost imagine the route, though walking would certainly be different than driving up to Trinity Plaza on the weekend. 

If she used this Pip-Boy map, she had full faith in her ability to find it.

“Thank you so much! You’ve been incredibly helpful,” Nora set her knapsack down and rummaged through the side pockets. She pulled out the cigarette pack she had found in Vault 111 and pushed it into Carla’s hands. 

Carla looked stunned for a moment before schooling her features.

“How much you want for this?” Carla looked down at the pristine pack of cigarettes. 

Shit, they almost looked pre-war, without even a dent in the pack. These preserved cigarettes were worth a good deal of caps.

“Not for trade, it’s a gift. Thank you for the information.” 

Nora smiled, and her mind was filled with the grand library from her memories, sunlight filtering in through the lofty windows to touch upon the visual feast of hardcover books. 

Carla slipped the pack of cigarettes into her jacket pocket before the vault kid could change her mind.

“Where you from? Never seen ya on my route before,” Carla stared hard at Nora’s features. 

She’d remember a face like that.

“Well, I’m from Sanctuary Hills. It’s a little neighborhood up the road north of here, past Concord. It’s not much, but I plan to bring people back with me to start up a community over there.” She cinched her knapsack closed and swung it back over her shoulders. “Oh, my name is Nora by the way! If you’re ever in the area, you should stop by, I’m sure there will be people who’d like to trade, myself included.”

“Hm, maybe I will.” 

Carla took a last drag from her cigarette and flicked it into the dirt. She didn’t smile, but the lines of her face were relaxed.

“Okay, well, I hope to see you again sometime soon.” Nora gave her a little wave and walked towards the direction of the Boston Public Library. 

Carla didn’t respond, watching the strange woman and her robot become a small dot on the horizon before pulling the pristine pack of cigarettes back out of her pocket, staring down at them in wonder.

**...**

The walk had been fairly quiet so far considering they had chosen to stick to the road, or what was left of it. Crumbling houses lined the street and she thought of exploring them but decided against it when she put her foot on the bottom step of one and the entire structure groaned. 

They walked in companionable silence as the day passed, no peep aside from the stray crow, and before she knew it they had reached College Square. 

Oh, _College Square_.

She scoffed as lively memories of her time at college rushed back to her. 

After she had completed her undergrad and went on to study law, most of her friends had dropped out and gotten married and had children. 

Her mother was beside herself when Nora had hit her twenty-fifth birthday with no child in sight, and even Nate had started to grow concerned. She had always planned on having children, every woman was expected to, but inside she never felt the desire to become a mother. 

She never told anyone, god forbid, and could only imagine the horror and confusion she would have gotten from her family had she ever verbalized that feeling. 

Was she broken?

“Ma’am, may I suggest we move along? There’s quite a lot of gunfire.” 

Codsworth broke her from her thoughts, and she was surprised to hear loud shots blasting out from around the block. 

It sounded like a war-zone!

“Good plan.”

They gave College Square a wide berth and hurried past the ruins of C.I.T. 

While she would have loved to poke around her alma mater, there was something about being out in the open that was starting to make Nora nervous. The faster she could gain cover inside the library, the better. 

They crossed the steep bridge over the Charles River without hassle, and a frisson of delight zapped through her when the blinking Pip-Boy map showed how close they were. Her excitement was palpable, though tempered by the stray gunshots that rang out in the distance. 

Up ahead she noticed a faded sign for the _Apartments_ , a rather expensive collection of luxury condos overlooking Trinity Plaza. She had always dreamed of moving there someday, and curiosity got the better of her as she peeked inside the desecrated lobby. 

A headless corpse near-eaten away by rot dangled from a giant, rusted hook that hung from the rafters. 

The body swayed in the breeze, and Nora felt her breakfast threaten to come up. 

She took a few panicked steps back, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Who would do something like that? It was so… so needlessly violent. 

Nora’s eyes darted around, but there wasn’t a soul in sight, just the body and the flies. 

She backed away from the _Apartments_ and continued down the street, much more subdued. They turned the block and the towering green stadium walls of _Diamond City_ appeared before her eyes. 

“Wow…” Nora breathed, overcome with awe in the presence of such a monument still stood amongst all the wreckage. 

A bulky figure wielding a baseball bat, body bundled in dense padding with a batting helmet obstructing his face came up from behind and walked around them, scanning the buildings and streets around him with a lazy turn of his head.

“Looking for Diamond City? Just follow the signs,” he jerked his thumb towards a plank of wood with a white arrow pointing east.

“Thanks,” Nora replied, jarred by his sudden appearance. She made a note to pay better attention to her surroundings. 

Up ahead she spied the dome of the library poking out from above the boarded-up buildings, with Trinity Tower looming overhead. 

They turned the corner of another block and finally arrived, the Boston Public Library regal and austere, painted amber with the light of the setting sun. 

A throaty growl rang out beside her before something slammed into her and knocked her to the ground. 

Nora flipped around and lifted her arm just in time to block jagged fingernails from raking across her face. 

She screamed and scrambled for her gun while holding the thrashing body above her at bay. 

She could hear Codsworth grunt as he swung his buzzsaw somewhere in the distance, calling out for her. 

The creature on top of her resembled a hairless man with drooping, textured flesh that had started to slough off. It opened its mouth to reveal a few pointed, broken teeth and sunk them into the meat of her arm with a crunch. 

Her eyes rolled back from the pain, but adrenaline shot through her and snapped her out of it. She jerked the gun out of her pocket and jammed it underneath its chin and fired, blowing the top of its head off. The body slumped away and the clenched teeth took a chunk of her with them. 

She scrambled to stand up and tried her best to ignore the nerves in her arm that sang with pain. She called out for Codsworth and found him pressed to the ground with two more of those creatures dogpiled on top of him, beating and scratching at the metal of his body. 

She lifted the gun with trembling hands but stopped herself from shooting. What if she hit Codsworth by accident? 

Nora picked up a piece of broken concrete and hauled it at one of the monsters, nailing it square in the back. It stumbled away from Codsworth and before she could blink it was sprinting towards her. 

She screamed and fired off shots until it dropped to the ground with a wet slap a few feet in front of her. She had somehow managed to blow its kneecap out, yet still it dragged itself towards her, streaking blood across the dirt. 

It didn't scream out in pain or utter a word aside from gurgled snarls. 

What could possess this man, and if not man, this monster to keep going in spite of excruciating pain, for no discernable reason? 

Nora leveled the barrel of the gun at the creature and fired off another shot. 

It dropped dead, head splattered across the road. 

Codsworth cut down two more that had been lured by all the noise and hurried over to Nora. 

“Ma’am, your arm!” 

Codsworth pointed down to the thick streams of blood that dripped to the ground from her fingertips. Pain lashed out and struck her as the heat of battle died and tears rushed down her cheeks. 

She looked around them to be sure there were no more threats before she rolled up her sleeve to assess the damage. Her eyes fluttered at the dangling strips of flesh surrounding the deep red gash that oozed dark blood. 

“Water, please,” she bit down on her lip, hard. 

Codsworth handed her a can of purified water and she washed the wound the best she could, and wiped away the grit with a clean t-shirt from her knapsack. She folded the shirt in on itself and wrapped it around the tender flesh before injecting a stimpak as close to the wound as she dared. Relief flooded through her, but her arm still radiated a pain that left her breathless. 

Or perhaps that was the blood loss? 

Nora swung the knapsack back across her shoulders and made a quick dash for the closer side entrance of the library. 

She tried to open the door but it was locked.

She cursed under her breath and pressed the button on the nearby intercom, and a cheery female voice responded.

“Welcome to the Boston Public Library, the Library is currently closed.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Only employees and those with a scheduled appointment may enter. All other guests are invited to return during normal business hours.” 

Nora stared at the intercom exasperated and held the shirt tighter against her arm.

“Please, let me in. I have come a long way and I’m injured. I have supplies I can share!”

“Only employees and those with a scheduled appointment may enter. All other guests are invited to return during normal business hours,” the voice repeated, and Nora realized the person on the other side was merely a pre-recorded automation.

“I’m an employee, let me in.” 

She had come this far and wasn’t leaving until she saw the damn library.

“Please provide your six-digit employee ID number.” 

“My ID number is…” Nora blinked, and blood rushed in her ears. “000001?”

“Welcome, employee number 000001. You are two hundred and ten years late for your shift, please report to a supervisor at once.” 

The door unlocked with a metallic click and Nora laughed in disbelief. She pushed the door open and walked inside, Codsworth hovering close behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for any reviews, positive or negative, they're all greatly appreciated and very helpful :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! I promise weekly updates, most likely Sundays

"He was not sure that there were any great moments. Things were not the same and now life only came in flashes."

― Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_

Nora pulled the library door shut behind them and glanced around the large foyer in awe, observing a veil of dust motes that danced in the dim light from the floor up to the fissured ceiling that towered above. 

There were signs of destruction everywhere she looked. 

Bookcases were knocked over and propped against one another to provide places to hide. Desks had been broken and reassembled into haphazard barricades and loose sheets of yellowed paper and wooden fragments were plastered into a mat that crunched underfoot.

Turrets sat on upturned cabinets and swiveled their muzzles from side to side, clicking as they went. She noticed a handful that sparked and leaked smoke, and even more that were scattered across the floor in pieces of twisted metal. 

Nora passed through the foyer into a spacious room with shattered windows overlooking the now dilapidated feature garden for which the library had been built around. The destruction was just as bad, if not worse, in this room. 

Protectrons patrolled the great space, with more turrets stationed on stacked bookshelves, scanning the room for hostiles. 

Nora approached a protectron to try and get some information.

“Um, excuse me, wh-”

“Protect and Serve.” 

It passed her by, mechanical joints grinding and clanking as it moved down the corridor to patrol another branch of the building. She sighed and walked deeper into the room, and noticed about a dozen bloodied bodies strewn across the floor near the fallen turrets and protectrons. 

She approached one of the corpses and had to do a double-take. 

It was the largest man she had ever seen. 

He must have been at least seven feet tall, if not more, stretched out flat across the floor. He had no visible hair on his body, and he was covered in thick bands of rippling muscle under skin that was a mix of grey and green in color. 

She nudged his side to make sure he was dead, and he was so heavy he barely budged. His armor was a hodge-podge of metal pieces and car parts welded together, with swaths of dirty cloth to cover the spaces in between. Human and animal skulls were secured to lengths of chain that were wrapped around his waist as a makeshift belt. 

No wonder so many protectrons and turrets lay obliterated on the ground. 

Nora stepped away and continued to explore the room, taking note that the rest of the fallen men were all similar in both stature and feature. 

She wandered up to the only bookcase somewhat intact and pulled a book from the shelf. 

It was burnt, the text illegible. 

She sighed and placed it back where she found it and pulled the rest down. After flipping through them it became apparent that all of the books were damaged beyond repair. 

Bitterness filled her and she scoffed at her silly little fantasy of waltzing in here and sitting upon a throne of books, reading whatever her heart desired at her leisure. 

She made her way to the back of the room and noticed a working terminal tucked behind some bookcases. 

_Curator Given’s Terminal_ blinked across the top of the screen. 

Her heart sank as she read her way through the dated entries detailing how close Givens and his team had come to scanning in all the library books to their archive.

_“... it’s only a matter of time before they wipe us out completely… may be the last log I write… Help us protect the information stored on the computers in the data room. The key to the storage room is behind the terminal. There are some supplies you may find useful there.”_

Nora stuck her hand behind the terminal and was surprised to find a key still there. She slipped it into her pocket and headed through a nearby door to what she presumed was the data room. 

There were computers and servers wall-to-wall, and they were all shattered to pieces. 

She looked down and saw what was probably Mr. Given’s dead body on the floor, protecting the archive up until his last breath.

“Dammit,” she whispered, and fought the urge to give in and cry. 

Was there nothing left? 

One moment she was an independent woman with a college degree, terrified but excited to plan a life free of Nate, and in the next moment her world was gone in the blink of an eye. Replaced with this brutal, unforgiving hellscape with something or someone trying to kill her at every turn. 

Nora thought of her brothers and her mom, what had become of them? She hoped they had passed quickly after the bombs dropped, she hoped they hadn’t suffered.

Nate’s frozen face flashed across her mind and grief bubbled up within her. 

Her lip trembled and she pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs. 

She trailed her fingers across the cold glass of the bashed-in archive terminal screen and thought of all the generations of knowledge forever lost.

“Ma’am?” 

Codsworth hovered in the doorway of the data room, watching her with concern. 

She had Codsworth at least, without him she would have been truly lost. 

And what of poor Codsworth? 

What had he been through for the past two hundred years? Unsure and alone in that empty house, devoid of life knowing the only family he ever had were presumed dead. 

“I’m fine,” Nora wiped her face with her sleeve and smiled at him. “Let’s check out the storage room.” 

She pulled the key from her pocket and unlocked the only other door in the data room. 

The room was lined with rusted iron shelves that held a generous amount of food and ammo, along with a couple of first-aid kits. At the center of the floor sat a sizable steamer trunk, and she propped open the lid to find it filled to the brim with ammo, bottle caps, a few trinkets, and guns. 

So many guns. 

Guns Nora wouldn’t have the first clue on how to operate, as most of them looked like they were cobbled together pieces of pipe and screws. 

She lowered the lid and sat down to unwind the bloodied shirt from her arm. The wound was healing thanks to the stimpak, but the scabs that had stuck to the shirt ripped open and trickled fresh blood. Nora used the shirt and more water to clean the wound back up and bandaged it properly with gauze from one of the first aid kits. 

She popped a few pain relief tablets and tried to collect her thoughts. 

Here she was, sitting in an abandoned, fortified building that was well-armed with protectrons and turrets. There were probably all sorts of goodies and supplies tucked around the rest of the library. And who knows, maybe even a few books had survived? It was a shame that Givens and his team were gone, but that didn’t mean their supplies deserved to rot. 

“Codsworth?” 

She felt like she had a plan for the first time since she had woken up from the pod, and excited adrenaline twisted in her stomach.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I’m going to need your help.” 

Over the next four hours, Nora and Codsworth swept through the Boston Public Library with a fine-tooth comb. 

No drawer nor pocket were left unchecked. 

She worked up quite a sweat dragging all of the guns from the bodies of the colossal men back to the storage room. She had underestimated how many men there were, as the fighting seemed to have wrapped around the entirety of the building. 

The first sledgehammer she came upon she gave a sincere effort to drag along with an armload of ammo belts, but abandoned the weapon after a few minutes of struggle. It wasn’t worth the strain, she’d never have use for it anyway.

One of the men had a minigun still clenched in his hands and she just laughed. 

There was no way in hell that was ever budging. 

How strong were these people, to be able to handle a minigun with the ease with which she handled her pistol? 

After searching their bodies she found that most of the giant men only carried ammo, processed food, chunks of raw meat, and miscellaneous bones in their bags. She collected the food and ammo and left the rest. 

Absolutely disgusting, she thought, and wiped her hands off on the sides of her pants. 

By the time they had finished stripping the library and fallen dead, the supply room was near-bursting with weapons, ammo, medical supplies, blankets, food, and trinkets. 

Nora took a short break before diving headfirst into the hunt for any salvageable books, afraid of losing steam. After two exhaustive hours of searching, she had found fifteen books, all of which she stacked in neat piles next to Curator Given’s terminal. 

She wiped the dust from her brow and beamed with pride. 

Tasks complete, there was nothing more she wanted than to curl up in a ball and sleep for the next week, but she’d hate herself in the morning if she didn’t wash up first. 

Nora dragged her feet to the library bathroom with a full bucket of purified water and scrubbed herself with soap until there wasn’t a speck of sweat or dust left. She changed into a clean set of clothes and brushed her hair out until it was smooth, and felt worlds better. 

She walked to the data room and set her bag down. There were a few mattresses in here, and while they weren’t the cleanest, it was sure as hell better than sleeping on the hard ground. 

She glanced at Mr. Givens. 

He was the only person she hadn’t searched yet, and she sighed as she reached her hand into his pockets.

“Please forgive me, Mr. Givens,” she whispered, but found nothing aside from a gold pocket-watch tucked deep in the breast pocket of his coat. 

She debated for a second before placing the watch back where she had found it, and with Codsworth’s help, dragged his body out to the main room. 

Nora respected the man, but that didn’t mean she wanted to sleep next to a corpse. She locked the storage room and slipped the key back into her pocket before barring the door of the data room and curling up on the mattress, asleep in an instant.

**...**

Nora awoke to the ache of muscles she never knew she had. 

She had always been slim, but lacked any muscle tone whatsoever. When her friends would head off for Tennis Club, she would leave to read in the university library or go to the café instead. 

Exercise was never something that interested her, and she kicked herself for that now. 

In her defense, she never considered the world would end.

Nora glanced at her Pip-Boy to check the time and was surprised to find it was only 5:48 AM. While she hadn’t intended to wake up so early, she found herself too keyed up to go back to sleep. 

She contemplated the sheer amount of supplies she had accumulated and frowned.

There was no way in hell she could carry it all back to Sanctuary Hills alone, not even in three trips. Perhaps she should go to Diamond City and ask about hiring a few helping hands? 

She certainly had the caps, and wouldn’t that be grand if they ended up staying with her afterwards to help start up a little community? As _interesting_ as all this adventure and traveling had been, and as much as she loved Codsworth, she was getting awfully lonesome. 

Nora got ready for the day and transferred the books she had found yesterday to an empty shelf in the supply-closet. She went over to Curator Given’s terminal and typed out a quick message.

_“To anyone who is reading this, I am sorry to inform you that the Boston Public Library was demolished by the time I had gotten here. Unfortunately, the archive was destroyed before Curator Givens and his team could complete their work, and it has all been lost. I have recovered fifteen books from the library that are in decent condition and will be taking them with me to keep them safe. If you have any interest in them, please come find me at Sanctuary Hills, a small community north of Concord._

_\- Sincerely, Nora”_

There, that seemed good enough, she thought, and closed out of the terminal. 

She refreshed a few supplies in her knapsack and locked the supply-closet before slipping the key back into her pocket and exiting the library. 

Nora took in a deep breath of the brisk morning air and felt rejuvenated.

“I feel like today is going to be a really good day, Codsworth.”

“Right you are, ma’am.” 

Codsworth was more than glad to see her in good spirits once more. 

The faint sounds of cheering on the wind caught Nora’s attention, and she walked around the corner of the library, glancing around in confusion. It took her a moment to realize the sounds were coming from the top of Trinity Tower, and she watched the building with curiosity. 

A furious shout, more roar than anything, rang out and Nora was startled to see someone shoved from the top of the tower. 

She watched in horror as they fell and gasped when the person struck the edge of a window-washer’s elevator. Their quick descent was halted when their armor snagged on a long piece of rebar that was sticking out from the side of the building, and Nora held her breath. 

The rebar groaned under the person’s weight and snapped like dry wood. 

“Oh my god!”

The person plummeted through the air faster than her eyes could track before slamming into a rusted bus, the roof caving in like a cheap tin can. 

The figure slumped over the side of the vehicle to the ground and a rowdy cheer went up from the tower before everything fell quiet once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for any reviews, positive or negative, they're all greatly appreciated and very helpful :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story!  
> Updates every Sunday

"People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."

― Ernest Hemingway, _A Moveable Feast_

Nora moved forward without thinking, edging along the wall towards the crushed bus that had broken the man’s fall. Codsworth followed close behind, silent as a mouse. 

She snuck glances up to the top of Trinity Tower, but as far as she could see there was no one watching. She ducked down and crawled over to him, alert for any signs of movement. 

He looked similar to the dead men inside the library, except he had a very distinct scar that cut across his left eyebrow ridge. She knelt beside him and pressed shaking fingers to his neck, and was shocked to find a thready pulse.

“He’s alive!”

Should she try and help him? 

She had no way of knowing if he was dangerous, or why he had been thrown off Trinity Tower in the first place. Regardless, he was hurt and in desperate need of help, and Nora couldn’t imagine leaving him there to die. 

How on Earth was she going to get him back to the library, though? 

Nora inched her hands underneath his shoulders until she got a good grip on his armor and tugged with all her might. 

She flew back and landed on her ass, scraping her knuckles across the ground. She hissed and rubbed them on her suit before sucking a small drop of blood away. 

She had no idea how strong Codsworth was, but he would have to take the top and she the legs.

“Codsworth, I’m going to help get his arms over yours so you can pull him, and I will carry his feet. It’ll be difficult, but I think we can do this.”

Codsworth’s optics widened before scanning the slumped figure on the ground.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, ma’am? He looks dangerous.”

Nora lifted one of the man’s arms and marveled at the hard muscle beneath her fingertips. Codsworth hovered closer and she hefted it over one of his metallic arms, causing the hydraulics to hiss.

“That’s true, but he needs our help. And if he does turn out to be dangerous, we can just hide in the data room and bar the door until he goes on his merry way.” 

Nora secured his other arm over Codsworth’s and looked over to the library to try and gauge how far they’d have to drag this poor man. She walked to his legs and tucked his ankles beneath her arms, and winced when his armor dug into her ribs. 

“If you at any point feel uncomfortable, or feel like something is going to break, please tell me. God help me Codsworth, I would be lost without you.” 

Nora held his eyes to ensure he understood that she was serious, and Codsworth puffed up.

“Not to worry ma’am, I can handle it!” 

The gears inside him let out a frantic whir and after a few moments the man’s shoulders cleared the dirt as Codsworth lifted higher off the ground. 

“Word of warning ma’am, I am currently running at 150% capacity and will only be able to maintain this for another seven minutes before shutdown.” 

Her heart skipped a beat at the word _shutdown_ and hefted the man’s legs the best she could, but only managed to lift him enough so that his skin would not drag. His armor scraped across the broken asphalt as they trudged along, and Nora looked up from time to time to make sure no one was within earshot.

They made it three feet before her burning arms began to tremble, and she cursed under her breath as the library door seemed to get farther the longer they walked.

“Mother of god I’m going to die,” she said through gritted teeth, and sighed in relief when she was able to drop his legs to prop open the door. 

They struggled to get the man over the threshold as his armor seemed to snag on everything in sight, and they took another break so that Nora could secure the door shut behind them. 

She let Codsworth get his bearings while she rushed to the data room to drag one of the spare mattresses out to the main room. 

With one final heave, they pulled the man across the floor and up onto the mattress and she took a step back, limbs shaking from exertion. 

Without a word, Codsworth tucked his extremities in and reclined to the ground to recuperate, and she knew he would be out for a while. 

She rubbed at her throbbing shoulders and hurried to the supply-closet to grab a first-aid kit.

Nora glanced over to the injured man and started to feel overwhelmed knowing that his life was now in her hands. 

_Okay Nora, take a deep breath and think, you should probably give him a stimpak first to cover all your bases._

She injected one into him, and found it somewhat difficult to puncture the skin of his arm. Nora set the used stimpak down and ran her eyes over the man, not quite sure where to begin. 

The exposed skin of his arms and legs that peeked out from between the pieces of his armor were dotted with gashes, layers of grit stuck to the dried blood. His face was covered in lacerations and she sucked in a pained breath at his bottom lip that was near-split in half.

She hadn’t the first clue on where to start with his armor, but after pulling it away from where it met at the shoulder joints she realized it was for the most part secured together with thick rope and chain. 

Fortunately, her hands were quite small and she had no trouble slipping them between the plates of armor, and so she began the long and arduous process of undoing all of the knots. 

Eventually the armor started to loosen and she eased it off, doing her best not to jostle him. Her arms trembled with strain as she lifted away the remaining pieces of his upper armor, and she dragged it all off to the side in a messy pile. 

Nora settled back beside him and took in the deep purple bruises that bloomed across his wide chest like violets, and she knew they would only worsen as the days passed.

She gasped when her eyes found the mangled wound on his side, and her head swam at the gruesome sight. 

It looked as if the rebar that had broken his fall had sliced from his left hip up to his ribs, and she noticed with a jolt that a piece of it was still stuck inside the gash. 

“Okay Nora, you can do this. If you don’t, who will?”

She rolled up her sleeves and gripped the metal rod with both hands and yanked it loose, unleashing a torrent of black blood. 

She cursed and pressed a clean cloth to stem the flow. 

He soon bled through it and she switched it out for another before injecting a second stimpak. Once the bleeding stopped she eased up on the pressure of the towel and checked his pulse, relieved to find that it had stabilized. 

Nora removed the rest of his lower armor to check for more injuries and blushed when she caught a glance at what was hidden beneath the cloth, but pushed the thought from her mind when she noticed how dirty the man was. She knew she had better clean him up before bandaging his wounds and went about preparing a bucket of water. 

She set the bucket down beside him and soaped up a washcloth, and began to wipe him down, taking care to remove every trace of blood and dirt from his body. 

She settled his massive hand across her knee and worked the cloth between each finger with gentle pressure.

“You sir, are absolutely filthy,” Nora muttered under her breath, working at the stubborn dirt around his nails. 

Curiosity got the better of her and she laid her palm against his, shocked to find his hand three times the size and very warm.

After refilling the bucket once more, she was satisfied that she had gotten him as clean as possible given the circumstances, and attempted to wrap the bandages around his torso.

She settled on securing them with medical tape instead when she realized it would be nigh impossible for her to lift him, and then took her time running her fingers down the dense muscle that covered his arms and legs, feeling for broken bones. She couldn’t feel much aside from the muscle and hoped she wasn’t overlooking something serious. 

That was the extent of her medical knowledge, the rest was up to fate. 

She worried her lip, wondering at what internal damage he may have, but there was nothing more she could do for him now. 

Nora sat back with a sigh and watched in amazement as the superficial wounds on his face knitted themselves together.

“Incredible,” she whispered, tracing the side of his split lip that looked far better than it had thirty minutes ago. 

She took the opportunity to study his face up close and noticed his cheekbones were quite defined, casting small shadows upon his cheeks. He had a heavy brow lined from frowning that led to a straight, Grecian nose. His mouth tugged down at the corners, and his jaw was broad and powerful. 

His neck was thick and corded, and her eyes trailed down to the widest set of shoulders she had ever seen. His expansive chest and arms swelled with muscle, and she peeked down to confirm that yes, he had a belly button. 

So he had to be human, though she had no idea how to explain the grey and green tone of his skin. 

Realizing that she had left the poor man naked and cold, she fetched a blanket to cover him with before turning her attention to the mess of used medical supplies scattered across the floor.

**...**

Nora grew worried as the hours passed and he remained unconscious, and she wondered if he would ever open his eyes again. 

Over the next couple of days she stayed glued to his side, monitoring his heartbeat and dabbing the sweat from his face. 

At one point his eyes opened, bleary and unfocused, and Nora gasped and dropped her book. She slid her hand behind his neck and tipped his head forward, encouraging him to drink some water. 

At first he resisted, but once the cold can of water pressed against his lips he drank desperately. She made sure to only give him the water in small sips before he collapsed back down to the mattress, unconscious once more.

Nora started to work her way through the preserved books to pass the time while he slept, and when she grew tired of reading she would turn the radio on low and wash small batches of laundry in the restroom sink. 

On the morning of the third day, she pressed her fingers to his wrist to check his pulse and his body jerked, eyes opening wide in panic before settling on her. 

_He has light green eyes, just like mine._

Strong attempted to sit up but found his body weak and unresponsive. 

He glared at the small human woman sitting beside him and growled, trying to lift his arm, but froze when a jolt of pain raced down his spine.

“Please, take it easy, you’re still injured.”

Nora placed a hand against his shoulder and it twitched under her touch. 

His eyes darted around the room, registering the dozen super mutant corpses sprawled out across the floor. His nostrils flared, breathing hard. 

Was this human going to kill him?

“You were… well you were thrown off the top of Trinity Tower. Frankly, I have no idea how you survived,” Nora laughed, and then slapped a hand over her mouth. “Not to say that I’m not relieved to see you’re doing okay now! Luckily, Codsworth and I found you when we did and brought you here,” she gestured around them. “We’re in the Boston Public Library, and well-guarded, so please rest assured you’re safe now.” 

Nora waited for him to respond, but he merely blinked at her. 

She twisted around and grabbed a can of purified water. 

“Are you thirsty? You should have some water.” 

She reached a hand behind his neck and lifted his head up, and he thrashed in her grip.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. You’re safe now,” she lifted the water to his lips and he gave in. 

Satisfied, she eased him back down to the mattress and pulled the corner of the bandage from the wound on his side. She pressed around to make sure it wasn’t infected, and he flinched away from her touch.

“Ah, I’m sorry. Most of your injuries are healing well, but we’ve got to pay special attention to this one. Are you in any pain?” 

Strong only glared in response. 

Nora picked up a syringe of Med-X and lined the needle up to his arm.

“Small pinch,” she breathed before injecting him, and soon the pain began to fade and he fell asleep.

**...**

The next time Strong awoke, he was feeling better than before, though his body felt useless and sore all over. 

The human slept on the floor next to him, leaning upright against the legs of a nearby chair. 

Now was his time to kill her and escape. 

His abdominal muscles trembled and sweat beaded on his brow as he attempted to sit up. He reached a hand towards her throat, but a twinge in his side snapped through him and he fell back limp with a pained grunt. 

The movement woke the human up, and she rubbed her eyes before blinking over at him.

“Oh, you’re awake! How are you feeling?”

She leaned over him and the warm scent of soap and something floral flooded his nose and made his head feel light. He kept his mouth shut and glared at her. 

She sighed and pressed a soft hand to his forehead. 

“Well good news at least, you never caught a fever.” 

He shuddered under her touch, unused to any contact aside from what he received in combat. She injected a stimpak into his arm and pulled the blanket down.

“The bruising on your chest looks much better today! You’re healing so quickly,” she smiled and tucked the blanket back around him before patting his arm. “Are you hungry? Let’s start you off with something bland and easy to digest.” 

Strong shook his head, but his stomach rumbled. 

Nora stood up and left to prepare some food, leaving him to his thoughts. 

The human did not seem intent on killing him, at least for the time being. According to her, she had saved his life after his brothers had thrown him from Trinity Tower, but why would a human do something like that? 

A shudder ran down his spine as he remembered the flash of cold wind that had whipped against his face, and falling falling falling, and pain. 

His heart started to thunder in his chest and he swallowed hard. 

Strong did not feel fear, fear was for the weak. 

He calmed himself down and took the opportunity to look around the room at all the dead super mutants. 

The human may appear small and soft, but she had somehow managed to defeat a large number of his brothers. 

She must have the milk, or know where to find it. 

He thought of Rex staring out the window of their cell and something small clenched in his chest.

_“Do this thing for me, this selfless gesture of mercy, and you will soon be much, much closer to the milk of human kindness.”_

Strong was interrupted from his thoughts when the human knelt beside him with a bowl. 

“I wish I could make some chicken soup, but I suppose InstaMash will have to do.” 

She fed him small spoonfuls of the horrid mashed food, making sure he did not choke. 

Strong hated it, he wanted to sink his teeth into raw meat and feel the blood drip down his throat, but he was so famished he ate the food without complaint. When he was finished she set the empty bowl down and picked up a syringe of Med-X.

“Human, wait,” his voice rasped and Nora paused and looked at him in surprise. “Do you have the milk?”

“Milk?” Nora stared at him, perplexed. Did dairy cows still exist?

“Mack Beth. Do you know of the milk of human kindness?”

She frowned in puzzlement and took a moment to remember the reference. She hadn’t thought of Shakespeare since her school days.

“I’ve always understood it to mean care and compassion for others, even when it does not benefit you. To be kind, even if it makes you weak. I believe we all have the milk of human kindness inside us.”

_“We all have the milk of kindness inside us.”_

It wasn’t the answer he was looking for, and he leaned back down to think, resting his head against the mattress with a deep sigh. 

She injected the Med-X into him and he was unconscious once more.

**...**

Once the man had fallen asleep, Nora prepared a quick dinner for herself and washed up for bed. After some deliberation, she decided to leave the door of the data room ajar in case he woke up and needed anything. 

She settled down on the mattress and wrapped a blanket around herself, and her mind drifted to the enigma resting in the next room. 

How was it possible that he was recovering so fast when any other person would have been dead as soon as they had slammed into that window-washer’s elevator? He had also referred to her as _human_ , which she found odd. 

Wasn’t he human as well?

_“Mack Beth. Do you know of the milk of human kindness?”_

And Shakespeare? 

She never expected him, nor anyone for that matter, to want to discuss _Macbeth_ after waking up from a near-death experience. She shook her head, confounded. 

Regardless, she surmised that he seemed like a good person, if not a little brusque and distrustful. 

Nora fell asleep with all of the questions she had wanted to ask him primed on the tip of her tongue.

 **...**

The early light of dawn peeked through the windows and spilled across Strong’s face, causing him to groan and open his eyes. 

He attempted to lean forward and was surprised to feel himself sit up with ease, though his muscles twitched from the strain. He stretched one arm out followed by the other and flexed, feeling the blood rush to his fingertips. 

It felt good to not be weak any longer. 

He took his time standing up, and his legs trembled as he got his bearings. Once he stood to his full height, his head swam and he had to steady himself against a nearby table.

So maybe not completely recovered. 

He looked down and grimaced to find himself naked, vulnerability washing through him. Something tugged at his skin and he reached down to yank the bandages off, revealing wounds that had healed over. The new flesh was shiny and would leave scars in their wake. 

He frowned and began to look around for his gear, and spotted it off to the side of the room.

Strong picked up his armor and sniffed at it, shocked to find that the cloth portions smelt like soap. 

It took him a long time to secure the armor in place, the chest plate in particular, but once he was finished he felt much more like himself again. 

Strong watched the robot float away down the hall and scanned the space until his eyes landed on the small human asleep in the next room. 

He walked over and stared down at her, and thought her a fool to sleep unguarded. 

He imagined reaching down and crushing her head beneath his palm, and his fingers twitched to do so, but there was something in him that held him back. 

He remembered her gentle hand pressing against his forehead and a shiver ran down his spine. His brow furrowed and he stepped away from her. 

For some reason she had saved his life, and for that he would not kill her. 

For now at least. 

He settled back on the mattress and waited for the human to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for any reviews, positive or negative, they're all greatly appreciated and very helpful :)


End file.
